Q: Drag and drop deleted my files
Hi,
I went from Windows to Mac about 6 months ago. After buying an iPhone and later on an iPad I was content with the ease of the OS. I sold my Windows laptop, bought a MBP 13" and been loving OS X ever since.
Until today.
Let's get the obvious out of the way. I am stupid. I have not back-upped my files for a looooooong time. I have a collection of photos which are all back-upped to iCloud and to a second online cloud platform. Those photos mean a lot to me so I back them up. Other than that I play a few Blizzard games.
So I have been working on modding World of Warcraft for the last 3 months. Never done it before but, and I will brag here, created one of the best looking user interfaces for the game with tons of customized animations, graphics and custom LUA scripts. Here's where my stupidity comes in action. I should've back-upped my files. Obviously. Who doesn't, right?
I have never lost a file in my life. Never. Not because I back-upped my files, which I have done for years, but because I know how to use a computer. I read the messages that pop-up and confirm the option that I expect will give me the needed result. In fact, and I feel dumb saying it but I have a degree in IT. Though it's Windows based, I think it says something about my computer knowledge in general. So far, I have never experienced anything that I can't understand the nature of.
Anyway, yesterday I accidentally deleted half my Warcraft folder. Tough stuff. It happened, my own fault, whatever. Because a friend of mine uses my customised UI he put his folders on an USB stick so I could simply paste them in my folder. Although I didn't back-up my own files I still had them back-upped, right?
So here goes: I open a folder. Within are several folders ordered alphabetically. For simplicity's sake (which is literally what happened), I deleted my folders ranging from A to E (this is me being stupid, not checking the trash can and emptying it). So left are the folders ranged from F to Z. Right? > I copy my friend's folders A to E. > I paste them in to my folder (I don't overwrite, I ADD, the icon showed a PLUS, as in ADD, I DOUBLE CHECKED the icon) which has the folders A to E missing. Instead of ADDING them it DELETED MY folders F to Z and replaced them with my friend's folders A to E. My trash can is empty.
The problem is, my friend's folders F to Z were months old and I was working on a new UI. There's literally thousands lines of code that's been added and it's all gone. I have tried to use several restore programs (all costing 100 bucks or more) and they all retrieved files months old but NOT the files that were just deleted after ADDING files to a folder.
I know, I am stupid, I should back-up every day and whenever I update whatever. There's no excuse for that. But this isn't why I bought a Mac. I bought a Mac for its simplicity, its user friendliness. And it's the best OS I ever worked with. I've used Windows for over 20 years, I have used Linux, Ubuntu, you name it. I love OS X. Until today. I lost my life's work (well, it's just game but I spend a bazillion hours on customising it).
Drag and drop should NOT delete files.
I really, really regret ever switching to OS X now. I have no idea what went wrong but worse, I am afraid of using the simplest functions; drag and drop to copy files from one folder to another.
MacBook Pro with Retina display
Posted on May 28, 2016 9:08 AM