Files vanish from desktop

G

gulliver

Registered
All the files/folders (except the HD) on my desktop have vanished.

Just instantly gone.

Suggestions appreciated.

(And no, I don't have recent backup.)

All the HD stuff is fine - just the work in progress on the desktop.
 
Force quit the launcher and re-launch it and see what happens. If that fails, open the apps you were working on it and go to open recent files and see if that works. Also, do a simple search for the file names in case they were lost anywhere. And finally, if the trash is bulging, open it up and look in there.
 
Are you still using the same user-account? You might want to check the /Users/youruseraccounts/Desktop folders. Also repair the disk permissions using Disk Utility.
Good luck!
 
Thanks - but... already tried before I posted.

Some of the items have 'recent' aliases - but the originals can't be found.
A root-through the trash was my first action - not there.
A restart did nought. Neither did permissions repair.

DiskWarrior shows differences... but all the MIAs were on the desktop and DW doesn't show the desktops when comparing.
 
Zammy-Sam said:
It happened "just like this"?
Click to expand...

Yep. Literally.

Coding in BBEdit... checking in Firefox... closed/opened a tab or something and then clicked back to desktop to re-edit file and all gone... there were a good few folders/files scattered around.

I can't see any key combo I could have accidentally hit to trash them then and then empty trash - particularly as the HD icon is oviously also on the desktop and that remained...

A session with Norton UnErase has recovered the stuff - so clearly they'd been trashed. How? What magic key combo could I have hit that'd clear the desktop then empty the trash of many megs without the 'emptying' panel?
 
I'd be more wary of Norton than anything else. There's no key command I know that would do that. Lest you copied over your work with something blank.
 
>...and make a backup! Immediately! Working without a backup is not a good thing to do.

Thanks, mom.

A salient point is that the 'lost work' was today's - not older stuff. Does anyone backup every hour?

;-)
 
UPDATE...

Happened again... sorting through the recovered files, deciding which to keep and which to trash... organsising them into a bunch of folders on the desktop... poof! Gone. Again.

The desktop is idiot-proof... to have done this inadvertently I'd have had to have command+a selected all the folders then command+delete trashed them... then ignored the 'emptying trash' message. I didn't. I didn't. There wasn't any message.
 
Hmmm... perhaps the permissions on the Desktop folder aren't right -- try a permissions repair via Disk Utility and see if anything Desktop-related is fixed.

Other than that, you may want to try creating a new user account and working under that new account for a day or so to see if it exhibits the same disappearing Desktop files problem. If it doesn't, then we might be able to narrow down the problem to something with your old account.
 
>perhaps the permissions on the Desktop folder aren't right -- try a permissions repair via Disk Utility...

I repaired after the first loss - an hour or two later the incident repeated, so seems unlikely to be just that.

I'll try the alternate user account.
 
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