iCloud deleted my documents. How do I get them back

Many of those posting are using OS 10.6.X. There is rumor by at least one fairly reputable site (for what that is worth) that Apple may be releasing an update to Snow Leopard (OS 10.6.9) which will include iCloud support.

For now, and this is sanctioned, iCloud is available in OS 10.6.8 via browser access. It works great - when it works.

Hi all, this is how I fixed this problem:

1. on your mac: search for folder user/library/mobile documents.deleted...
2. there you will find folders for Keynote, Numbers and Pages (in my case these were the files icloud deleted by mistake)
3. Make a copy of these folders on your desktop or somewhere else!!
4. then copy the documents from the deleted folder into the library user/library/mobile documents
5. rename the folders from .numbers-tef into .numbers
6. after that they will appear on your iOS device that is linked to icloud
7. start Pages, Keynote or Numbers your iOS device
8. as you will not be able to open the documents from your iOS device you will have to email them to yourself using the built-in API
9. on your iOS device: open the document out of mail via "open in numbers"
10. your file will be opened by Pages, Numbers or Keynote
11. Rename it from file-1 into file
12. there you are!!

Good luck to all and Apple please fix this bug immediatelly!!!

I've just learned about this... is it true that ONLY iWorks docs & data are affected by the "dissappearing" problem?

Also, it seems that personally backing up to Time Machine will save all things deleted by iCloud.

Also, since earliest days of Macintosh, my computers have always confirmed I want to delete something before doing so. It seems prudent and proper for iCloud to do this also... or at least give users the opportunity to give permission for deletions. I know I can mistakenly dump material and MUST have a safety option like "confirmation" of orders to delete, and suspect most others need that too.

Certainly on your first point, I can confirm it WASN'T just iWorks Documents that were deleted in my instance. I not only lost all my Pages & Numbers documents, but also all the data that was stored for Soundhound, Jaws, DoodleJump, AwesomeIdea and TinyEditor. Everything was deleted. I found it all in the Mobile Documents.deleted folder, but it's pretty useless as I can't get it back into the apps from there.

I'm not sure backing up to Time Machine will help. It only helps with data on your Mac, documents you create on your iPad are stored in iCloud, not on the iPad, and therefore not copied to your Mac. The other issue is if you DO save it on Time Machine, how the heck do you restore it to your iDevice? There's no way of restoring a single application's data.

There IS a confirmation, when you sign out of iCloud, that your data will be deleted. The problem is it's being deleted off iCloud completely. If you have multiple devices for your iCloud account (i.e. my iMac, iPhone & iPad) you don't want the data deleted off iCloud if you are simply removing your iCloud account from your iPhone. It needs to stay in iCloud so it's still accessible from my iPad & iMac.

This does work!!! I didn't see mine in the folder at first, but they were in my time machine backup. I kind of want a job with Apple now since I figured out something that the Genius bar, nor AppleCare phone support could figure out haha. I am just so relieved that I back up with Time Machine and don't have to spend another 5 hours writing Exegesis Papers now!

I'm never using iCloud for Pages documents AGAIN.

florian from dettingen wrote:

Hi all, this is how I fixed this problem:

1. on your mac: search for folder user/library/mobile documents.deleted...
2. there you will find folders for Keynote, Numbers and Pages (in my case these were the files icloud deleted by mistake)
3. Make a copy of these folders on your desktop or somewhere else!!
4. then copy the documents from the deleted folder into the library user/library/mobile documents
5. rename the folders from .numbers-tef into .numbers
6. after that they will appear on your iOS device that is linked to icloud
7. start Pages, Keynote or Numbers your iOS device
8. as you will not be able to open the documents from your iOS device you will have to email them to yourself using the built-in API

You don't have to do nos. 6-12. Instead, after renaming the folders from .numbers-tef to .numbers, making them appear in iClouds, rename the folders back to .numbers-tef. Now you can open the documents again...

texinick wrote:

Certainly on your first point, I can confirm it WASN'T just iWorks Documents that were deleted in my instance. I not only lost all my Pages & Numbers documents, but also all the data that was stored for Soundhound, Jaws, DoodleJump, AwesomeIdea and TinyEditor. Everything was deleted. I found it all in the Mobile Documents.deleted folder, but it's pretty useless as I can't get it back into the apps from there.

Why can't you get your documents back from the .delete. folder? I have managed to get my iWorks documents back from there multiple times by now. I can't see why this should not work the same for other application documents...

In my Point of view it's unbelievable that the iCloud didn't get it's own time machine (versioning). We need a possibility to correct a mistake (from us self or from apple). Dropbox can do that from the beginning!!! Apple, please make your homework and does not release such incomplete stuff like that!

gvde wrote:

florian from dettingen wrote:

Hi all, this is how I fixed this problem:

1. on your mac: search for folder user/library/mobile documents.deleted...
2. there you will find folders for Keynote, Numbers and Pages (in my case these were the files icloud deleted by mistake)
3. Make a copy of these folders on your desktop or somewhere else!!
4. then copy the documents from the deleted folder into the library user/library/mobile documents
5. rename the folders from .numbers-tef into .numbers
6. after that they will appear on your iOS device that is linked to icloud
7. start Pages, Keynote or Numbers your iOS device
8. as you will not be able to open the documents from your iOS device you will have to email them to yourself using the built-in API

You don't have to do nos. 6-12. Instead, after renaming the folders from .numbers-tef to .numbers, making them appear in iClouds, rename the folders back to .numbers-tef. Now you can open the documents again...

I can't get either method to work. I've got my documents to show up on my ipad using this method but can't do anything from there.

If I try and open them I get "Spreadsheet couldn't be imported." message. If I try to email the file it just hangs with the progress bar not moving, when I try to cancel numbers crashes.

This is asinine that there is no word on this.

I have a presentation in two hours, and ALL my iWork documents that wered stored in iCloud ARE GONE!!!

my OS is 10.7.2 (Lion)

documents on my ipad, iphone,... ALL GONE!!!!!

Apple, you can't be serious!?!?!!!???!

For those who have lost critical documents I suggest calling Apple directly to retrieve these!

It shouldn't cost anything because this is an issue related to a critical failure post an Apple sanctioned update. HOWEVER verify this first with front line support before proceeding.

iCloud has no support, no tel. number, nothing!

MobileMe was bad, this is a nightmare!

can't find the folder everyone is talking 'bout neither ... there is no library folder in my user account...

In lion the library folder is hidden. Navigate to the user menu then in the menu bar click go, and choose go to folder. Type in library. Then you can navigate from there.

Just a heads-up!

The path mentioned here for deleted documents recovery:

" user/library/mobile documents.deleted"

applies to OS 10.7.X Lion only - there is no such path in 10.6.X SL (Snow Leopard) as yet.

Call Apple Tech support or Apple Customer Service relate the issue AND the urgency (but -be calm). Be sure to note that this ocurred as a result of an Apple update. This issue is probably well documented by now.