tracking my movements

zoranb

Registered
Is there a way i can see what happened to a file i moved to my computer and today i cant find it, not even with spotlight? Maybe i can see my actions i did the day before, when i moved it in my mac?
 
I didnt open the file, i just pasted it from Lan to my desktop and then kaboom the other day it wasnt there!
 
It may be there, hidden by another file if your desktop is as cluttered as mine! Try changing the Finder View option from "as Icons" to "as List" or whatever.

As a general tip: Don't use the desktop as a repository for files. Put them into a folder on your Hard Drive. Put an alias on your desktop if you need to.

(This is clearly a case of "do as I say" rather than "do as I do" but I don't feel the slightest bit guilty. I've been using Macs since 1987 so I know the pitfalls). :)
 
The OS has the ability to audit user actions, but it's not enabled by default - in fact, you have to download some extra software from Apple & enable auditing. So, what you did yesterday is lost in the sands of time...

One thing you might do though is try in terminal:

find ~ -ctime 1

which will list all files in your home directory whose change time is within the last 24 hours. To find all files whose change time is between 24 and 48 hours ago, you'd use '-ctime 2' and so on...

You can also look at all files in the entire computer whose change time is in the given window (which would be a much much longer list), you'd use

sudo find / -ctime 1
 
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