stickies VANISHED

[aviva212]

my stickies have remained saved for the last.... 8 months, im not even sure i actually hit a button and saved them, but they all are there when i shut down the computer and restart it every time... i was writing on a stickie note and listening to itunes and my computer froze so i just pressed off.... when i turned my computer back on, ALL of my notes were gone... just vanished... and i see on here people are saying use this '/Users/username/Library/.StickiesDatabase' to find the database but i dont even know where to enter that... it is so important i get them back, they have every lyric ive ever written... please. please help.

 

[bbloke]

It's been awhile since I used Stickies on the desktop, but my memory was that if you quit the program (Stickies) and later reopened it, the text you typed would still be there. Did you try opening Stickies manually? If so, had the text vanished?

Regarding the StickiesDatabase file, to be extra cautious, before trying anything (such as opening the program) you may want to make a copy of this file. If you're not comfortable using the Terminal, try the following step-by-step procedure:

1. Double-click on your hard drive on the Desktop to open a Finder window
2. Click on your home folder on the left hand side of the window (the icon of a house, with your username next to it); alternatively, in that Finder window that you just opened, double-click on the "Users" folder, then double-click on your home folder (house icon again)
3. Double-click on the "Library" folder
4. Within the Library folder, you will find a file called "StickiesDatabase"
5. Click once of the StickiesDatabase file to select it, then go to the Edit menu at the top of the screen, choose Copy StickiesDatabase, click on the Desktop (i.e. your wallpaper or background image!), then choose "Paste Item" from the Edit menu
6. You now have a copy of the StickiesDatabase file on your Desktop, but it is best to rename it; click once on the file name of this copy, wait a second or two, click again, and you should now be able to type (call it something slightly different, such as "StickiesDatabase copy" or something)
7. You can open this copy of this file with a program such as TextEdit and anything you typed should be in there. There will be a lot of "code," however, so it will look a bit messy and you will need to work through it to extract the relevant bits, but the main thing is that you shouldn't lose your lyrics!

Let me know how you get on!