Help I Accidentally Deleted A Lot Of Files I Need Them Back!!!!

Did you happen to put your home folder in the trash before doing this?

Doesn't that sudo command just move stuff to the trash? Might it be in the Trash Can?

What Os are you running? Is Time Machine an option?

natatos said:

No I don't think so I've done this command in terminal before and it always worked.

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Right, that command should only delete the contents of the Trash, unless I am missing something, which is why I was wondering if you or someone else put your home folder in there.

If you had a space between the ~ and the /, then your home folder would be the target of the rm -f.

follow this guide: http://www.squidoo.com/recovertrashmac

The two best data recovery utilities are Data Rescue 2 and Photorec (free).

flopticalcube said:

If you had a space between the ~ and the /, then your home folder would be the target of the rm -f.

follow this guide: http://www.squidoo.com/recovertrashmac

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Aha, ya' learn something new every day!

I recommend that you never use the rm command ever again.

Oh, I should also mention that I find it highly unlikely you're going to get everything back using a recovery program. You're probably going to have to reinstall Leopard.

Just out of curiousity, why were you even using this command in the first place? Why empty the trash from the command line in Terminal? Too easy to have something bad happen with the rm command as you have found out. Especially when using ~ anywhere in the rm command.

Next time you want to empty the trash with the rm command, type:


with the space after the "f" then drag the items from the trash onto the terminal window, and hit return.

If you're gonna use rm in terminal (and *especially* if you're using root/sudo), ALWAYS use the -i flag for interactive mode. That way, it asks Y/N for each file.

It's too easy to do something like rm -rf / path/to/file (notice the first space), and consequently essentially reformat your drive...

natatos said:

No I dont have a backup storage device I was going to get one soon though I will tomorrow.

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Kind of late for that now but better late than never. It's amazing how people learn to backup after the fact...

Unfortunately for the OP there is a lot more advice about what 'should have been done' than there is about what can be done now

Wish I had a better solution than Data Rescue II given above, but I don't
I hope you have some success in getting back your files
Sux to lose data

Give us an update if you are able

Woof, Woof - Dawg

First off, I did not notice this mentioned, stop using the hard drive with the deleted files! Right now! As you install programs, surf the net or any other activity you are adding temporary and permanent files to your hard drive. Each write to your hard drive can mean one or many files that are lost forever.

Now go and buy a hard drive to install Mac OS X onto and to store your recovered data (assuming you do not have another computer nor hard drive handy and you do not have a Windows partition on your Mac).

I would try Stellar Phoenix for data recovery. If you have a Windows computer or Windows on your Mac try Nucleus Kernel Mac. These are much more thorough programs than Data Rescue II. They do not require a recognizable partition map to function. Although I have had a thorough scan take over a day and several weeks for recovery on a hard drive with a faulty logic board.

GoKyu said:

If you're gonna use rm in terminal (and *especially* if you're using root/sudo)....

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.... ask the nearest person to smack you about the face several times and then just drag stuff there like a normal person.