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All files created on This Mac disappeared!!!!

O

oyede2020

macrumors newbie
Original poster
Jun 12, 2020
6
0
Hello everyone,
1. I started using Mac in January this year. I suddenly noticed Mac was running slow and word kept crashing.
2. A day after that happened, I observed that every word documents and pdf files and other file extensions, created on this Mac laptop since January just disappeared.
3. When I pressed shift+cmd+. I see the word documents as ~$filename. The original files are not seen.
4. Nothing has shown me the pdf files and other extensions.

Please help me!! I have pressing deadlines to catch up with.
Thank you.
 
Sorry to hear this is happening to your files. I know it can be pretty stressful. Do you have a backup of these files?
 
Maybe go see an Apple Genius at the Apple Store. Maybe you are still under warranty.
 
Which Mac do you have?
What year was it made?
What OS were you running?
Do you have a backup?
 
I appreciate everyone who took time to reply to my post.
No, I do not have a back up. I was trying to back up on an external Hard drive when this happened.
I use MacBook Pro 2019
I use MACOS Mojave version 10.14.6
I just bought the system in December last year. I should still be under warranty.

I noticed my WORD crashed and all files created on this system disappeared from every folder but filed copied from my Window laptop into these same folders are intact.
It is very disheartening. I really need help.

Has anyone experienced this before? What did you do to bring your files back?
Thanks
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Fishrrman said:
Which Mac do you have?
What year was it made?
What OS were you running?
Do you have a backup?
Click to expand...

I appreciate everyone who took time to reply to my post.
No, I do not have a back up. I was trying to back up on an external Hard drive when this happened.
I use MacBook Pro 2019
I use MACOS Mojave version 10.14.6
I just bought the system in December last year. I should still be under warranty.

I noticed my WORD crashed and all files created on this system disappeared from every folder but filed copied from my Window laptop into these same folders are intact.
It is very disheartening. I really need help.

Has anyone experienced this before? What did you do to bring your files back?
Thanks
 
I haven't experienced this before. Do you have iCloud Drive Desktop & Documents enabled? Do you have more than one user account for this Mac? Is your Documents folder empty? Are you using Microsoft OneDrive?

I'm not sure what might have caused this, but you may need to prepare yourself for erasing and reinstalling the OS. Before doing that, you might want to call Apple Support though. Do you have AppleCare for this Mac?
 
Namara said:
I haven't experienced this before. Do you have iCloud Drive Desktop & Documents enabled? Do you have more than one user account for this Mac? Is your Documents folder empty? Are you using Microsoft OneDrive?

I'm not sure what might have caused this, but you may need to prepare yourself for erasing and reinstalling the OS. Before doing that, you might want to call Apple Support though. Do you have AppleCare for this Mac?
Click to expand...

Thank you. No I do not have iCloud at all.

But I have not updated my OS since January. Can that cause this kind of problems?
 
oyede2020 said:
Thank you. No I do not have iCloud at all.

But I have not updated my OS since January. Can that cause this kind of problems?
Click to expand...
I highly doubt being on Mojave caused this issue. Plenty of members here don't wish to upgrade to Catalina yet and are staying on Mojave. Without a backup of any kind, you may have to face losing your files. Contacting Apple Support next would probably be a good idea.
 
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Namara said:
I highly doubt being on Mojave caused this issue. Plenty of members here don't wish to upgrade to Catalina yet and are staying on Mojave. Without a backup of any kind, you may have to face losing your files. Contacting Apple Support next would probably be a good idea.
Click to expand...

Thank you dear, for your suggestions. It is very difficult for me to believe that I will lose these hundreds of files just like that...

Someone should please help me....
 
Open Word, and go to File/Recent Files, and see whether any are listed (note that I don't have Word in front of me so the menu might be called something slightly different).

If you're able to open one of the missing files, then look at the title of the window: There should be a document icon followed by the name of the document. If you right-click on the icon then it'll show you the location of the document. Hopefully that'll let you find where the documents have gone.
 
Nermal said:
Open Word, and go to File/Recent Files, and see whether any are listed (note that I don't have Word in front of me so the menu might be called something slightly different).

If you're able to open one of the missing files, then look at the title of the window: There should be a document icon followed by the name of the document. If you right-click on the icon then it'll show you the location of the document. Hopefully that'll let you find where the documents have gone.
Click to expand...

Thank you Nermal,
I tried this steps and I got the following error message:
"This document is either deleted or not currently accessible."
Any further help?
Thank you
 
Namara said:
See if the steps in this Microsoft support article help to recover your files:

Recover files in Office for Mac - Microsoft Support

Use AutoSave and AutoRecover to save or recover files automatically in Office Word, PowerPoint, and Excel for Mac.
support.office.com support.office.com

Also, if you create a new Word document, to what location does it save?
Click to expand...

Dear Namara,
Thank you for your comments. I have tried your suggestions. I got about 20 auto recovered files. I also cannot open them even after I have changed their names.
Also, when I create new files, there go into "Document".

Let me also mention that my case is not about Autorecovery. My files were files that I have saved on my system since 2, 3 or even 4 months ago. Infact, since January, some are there. As long as there are files created on this MAC, they all disappeared. Including PDF, Doc, EXCEL, just name it.
 
I've got one last idea because it sounds like something got corrupted. Have you tried running Disk Utility First Aid?
 
I can't offer anything as to why this happened but I can offer the importance of backing up your device. Not trying to be mean in any way. External drives are extremely cheap these days.

I hope someone can offer you a suggestion to getting it all back.
 
OP:

Where did you normally KEEP your document files, before this happened?
Does that folder (if it was a folder) still exist?
Have you tried looking around in your home folder (using the finder)?
Have you tried searching for a few files, using names that you can remember?
 
I noticed that you referred to documents in WORD which is a Microsoft program. Apple has Pages. Were you running MS programs on your Mac? If so you may need to restore those programs to access your documents.
 
oyede2020 said:
I started using Mac in January this year.
Click to expand...

oyede2020 said:
I observed that every word documents and pdf files and other file extensions, created on this Mac laptop since January just disappeared.
Click to expand...
oyede2020 said:
When I pressed shift+cmd+. I see the word documents as ~$filename. The original files are not seen.
4. Nothing has shown me the pdf files and other extensions.
Click to expand...

From what I understand ,the OP is quite new using a Mac OS.
So i apologize if this sounds obvious but:

-In Finder you got the option to show/hide file extensions. It doesn't change the file itself , but only the aspect for the user.(e.g. with/without .pdf)
-in Mac OS systems with shift+command+. you can see hidden files. Could it be the Word documents are accidentally stored as hidden?
-When you open Word and go to preferences, is it possible to choose where the .docs will be stored?
They should be stored inside the Home folder(=user account),not in any other place .
By default they're supposed to be in the folder "Documents" ...
- when you open Word and start a new doc ,and press shift+command+S you can edit a title and where it will be stored
-When you open the disc with OS, there are 4 folders:
1applications
2Library
3System
4users

The folders 1,2 and 3 are for the OS, and not supposed (only for advanced options) to be manipulated by the user.
Anything the user stores , should be inside folder 4 "users".
Inside folder 4 , the user can edit, delete ,store and create new folders etc etc.

hope to be of some help..
 
Last edited:
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