Q: I didn't delete a TextEdit file, but it has disappeared
I've had a TextEdit file on the go for years, a large-ish plaintext file with information for work, saved time and again to a folder within Documents.
Recently, I searched for it, and got no results. It showed up in "Recent Items", but nothing happened when I clicked on the filename. When I opened the "Recent Items" menu again, it had gone from there. Truly bad news.
I've had a couple of instances recently where (probably because of Chrome), my MacBook Air (4Gb model, running 10.8.5) has said that it has no available disk space, at which point I have rebooted.
Does the system ever decide to delete a user's file to save space? (Seems churlish.) Might there be a ghostly version of the document in some kind of cache or backup folder? (I have found versions of old forgotten TextEdit files in ~/Library/Containers/com.apple.TextEdit/Data/Library/Autosave Information/ -- but not of this one.) Any other suggestions? Much gratitude and kudos if so.
(I have this week discovered that my Time Machine was turned off at the mains last year, so no backups since then.)
MacBook Air (11-inch Mid 2012), OS X Mountain Lion (10.8.5)
Posted on Sep 26, 2016 4:46 AM