How to recover files from deleted user MAC OS X 10.7

thomas_r. wrote:

Press command-shift-C, then double-click your hard drive, then double-click the Users folder. Enter Time Machine and restore the missing user folder from there.

The user's folder does not exist on the HDD because the account was deleted. Files from the account can be restored selectively to a different location by entering Time Machine first and then going back in time.

Ladysko wrote:

Hi,

Thanks for your reply but I don't understand how this resolves the issue - i know how to browse my own timemachine history but that only shows me my username folder and files it doesn't show you the files for a deleted user.

The question is using timemachine can you restore a file from ANOTHER user account? if so how?

If your account has administrator privileges, you can enter Time Machine and change to the /Users folder on your computer's HDD. When you scroll back in time to a date prior to having deleted the user account, the account folder and all its contents should show up. From there, you can enter and browse the account contents and restore any data you require.

It's worth noting that this only holds true for a limited amount of time. If your Time Machine backup has "rolled over" due to disk space issues, it's possible that the account data will have already disappeared. TM backups handle data in a FIFO manner (first in, first out). If you've only recently deleted the account, it should take very little effort to locate the data you need to restore.

Note: You will not be able to restore the user account in full without restoring the entire system to that particular date. You can, however, restore the enire user folder structure to /User, e.g., /Users/Karen, and browse that with administrator privileges.

Hi,

Thanks Thomas_R - I was confident that there was a way to do this and that you would have the answer was quite frustrated that I couldn't find the other users.

We are 80% of the way there - located the folder and retored to my current hardrive -however the folder comes up with a red access on it and i can't find an option to enter the username and password of the deleted users to restore (recover) the files.

Would it work to create the exact same user again and go back in time with timemachine?

Am i missing something very basic about how to restore?

Appreciate your help.

Regards & thanks

SKO

Please note the red no permission is active also in timemachine and the restored folder on my mac hard drive.

Ladysko wrote:

Please note the red no permission is active also in timemachine and the restored folder on my mac hard drive.

If you've restored the full user account structure to the /Users folder, then you would change permissions of the folder to enable you to access it, e.g., sudo chown -R yourshortname /Users/whomever/.

Hello,

I resolved this issue with the help or Thomas_R and Trane

Issue: Recover deleted users folder as an admin on the account

1) go into time machine Press command-shift-C, then double-click your hard drive, then double-click the Users folder.

2) went back in time to find when the user existed and then choose to restore the folder - it had a red no access on it - no big deal

3) once restored on admins hard drive go to folder and get info and add yourself to have read/write permissions

all doneski saved my mate from having to recreate her tax year - happy smiles.

I had the same problem. I accidentally deleted a user account and chose option-3, which was to delete the user's home folder as well.

Making sure I don't download, install, copy or do anything that might cause the OS to use persistent storage (flash in my case), I recreated the deleted user account, meaning recreated the account with same username as that of the deleted account. Mac OS figured that this is the same as that of the deleted account and it asked me, "do you wanna use the same home folder that was associated with this user earlier?" I gladly seleted, "Yes". It then gave me a white-screen for a long while. I lost patience and rebooted the laptop. At the login screen, it did show the icon for the newly created (deleted earlier) account. Gave the password, and Voila - it came back just fine. The few files that I was looking for were intact and opened up just fine in their respective applications.

This worked like a charm for me.

If you empty the Trash the files are gone. If a program does an immediate deletion rather than moving files to the Trash, then the files are gone. Data recovery is possible but you cannot process any additional writing operation to the hard drive but just shut your computer down. Actually when we delete files, the files themselves are not really erased-only the directory entries are deleted. The space which was occupied by the “deleted files” has been returned to the system as available for storage, but in fact that the “deleted files” are still on the drive. But if you write any data into the drive will overwrite the space of the "deleted files" and these files will be lost permanently. Also if you save a file into the hard drive with the same name of one file which has already put into the drive, the old one will be overwritten by the new one and cannot be recovered.

Maybe you can try uFlysoft Data Recovery for Mac, it can recover lost any file on Mac.

MAC

1. Take a deep breath. Everything’s going to be ok.
2. Open Finder.
3. Mouse up to the main menu bar and select Go.
4. Hold down Option on your keyboard and select Library from the drop-down menu when it appears.
5. In the finder window, browse to Library > Containers > com.microsoft.Powerpoint > Data > Library > Preferences > AutoRecovery
6. Select the file you’re looking to recover and rename with a .ppt extension.
7. Move the file to the desktop, or another handy location.
8. Reopen, and pick up where you left off.
9. Maybe you can try uFlysoft Data Recovery for Mac, it can recover LOST DATA on Mac .