Lost user data in MacBook

[realoldie]

Hi,

I had to force a shutdown of Firefox today and I immediately lost all of my user settings in all my applications. All my mail settings have gone and Mail wants me to set them up again; iTunes has lost all my podcast settings and asks me to re-register and so on.


My logon id and password are still valid, and when I search for the text of an email in Spotlight, I can see that it's still there, but I have no way of accessing it.

Does anyone know if there's a way that I can retrieve my settings? Any help will be gratefully acepted as I'm totally relying on my MacBook and it will be such a hassle if I have to statrt again from scratch.

Realoldie

 

[Mitthrawnuruodo]

Did you rename your "home folder" at any point before FF crashed/you restarted?

 

[realoldie]

No, no changes at all. I was in the middle of an ftp session when it happened.

Realoldie

 

[realoldie]

Hi Mitthrawnuruodo,

Based on your question I had a look at my Home Folder and noticed that the Library Folder was created today. So I had a look around and found that my original Library Folder had been moved into my Applications Folder.

So, I renamed the new Library Folder as "Library_new" and dragged the other Library Folder into my Home Folder. I rebooted and - voilà! everything's back to normal.

Thank you so much for responding so quickly and for leading me towards the solution. I've only been a Mac user for 5 or 6 months and I'm still learning!

realoldie

 

[Mitthrawnuruodo]

Well, a bit more complicated than I'd guessed... but nice detective work, and I'm glad it worked out...