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User profile for user: Camden Senneff
Camden Senneff Author
User level: Level 1
5 points

Mac applications folder disappeared.

Hi! Well, long story short, my Mac died yesterday, so after a lot of wasted time I decided to restore a Time Machine backup after wiping the drive via Recovery.

I didn't reinstall first, as it wouldn't let me do to 'smart errors' (I know that's probably a big deal but I really needed this computer to work), and what I assume happened was that the backup didn't have the Applications folder, and since I didn't install a base macOS install first, it's completely missing.

I've tried cding to it in terminal, opening it via finder, anything - it's truly missing.

I just need the base apps that you can't really get back to easily, like safari and etc, so how could I get access to those?

Thanks

macOS 10.13.4

MacBook Pro, OS X El Capitan (10.11.6)

Posted on Jun 9, 2018 5:47 AM

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User profile for user: macjack
macjack
User level: Level 10
111,168 points

Posted on Jun 9, 2018 5:54 AM

SMART monitors the health of your drive. If there are SMART errors it means your disk is about to fail. You'll need to replace it. Be sure you have a good backup, then if you want to try to restore the Applications folder anyway run the 10.13.4 Combo Update (but it may fail due to the SMART errors):

https://support.apple.com/kb/DL1959?viewlocale=en_US&locale=en_US

The Combo Update is a fuller install, as opposed to an incremental "delta" update, so it should overwrite any files that are damaged or missing. It does not matter if you have applied it before. It should preserve all your data and settings but that said you should always have a backup.

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User profile for user: macjack
macjack
User level: Level 10
111,168 points

Jun 9, 2018 5:54 AM in response to Camden Senneff

SMART monitors the health of your drive. If there are SMART errors it means your disk is about to fail. You'll need to replace it. Be sure you have a good backup, then if you want to try to restore the Applications folder anyway run the 10.13.4 Combo Update (but it may fail due to the SMART errors):

https://support.apple.com/kb/DL1959?viewlocale=en_US&locale=en_US

The Combo Update is a fuller install, as opposed to an incremental "delta" update, so it should overwrite any files that are damaged or missing. It does not matter if you have applied it before. It should preserve all your data and settings but that said you should always have a backup.

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Mac applications folder disappeared.

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