Any way to recover deleted files after I emptied the trash?

[iMas70]

I accidentally deleted some important files then emptied the trash. Is there a way to recover them? I did a search before posting this and came up with a few programs that say they can do it. Wondering if they actually work. It will be worth paying for a program if it works.

 

[teidon]

If the files were on non-encrypted hard disk (instead of SSD) it might be possible to recover the files. If the files were on SSD, you are pretty much SOL.

The first thing to do is to immediately shut down the Mac. You can use one of the many Live Linuxes out there to try and recover deleted files. Create a bootable USB drive with some other machine and er... google how to do it. Something like “linux recover deleted files” might give the results you want.

 

[iMas70]

They were in my Documents folder on the regular hard drive. I forgot they were also in iCloud when I deleted the folder from my Mac Mini. That took them off of my iMac too.

 

[teidon]

In that case you might be able to recover them from iCloud. See here, near the bottom of the page: https://support.apple.com/kb/PH21250

 

[iMas70]

Thank you!!!!!!! That's what I need! I'm working on restoring the files. Now. I wonder if it only shows 5000 files at a time. I believe there were close to 16k deleted. I won't mind getting everything back but only need about 150.

 

[iMas70]

The strange thing about how this happened, I realized what I did then noticed that the files that I need from this year were still there. That was the morning after I deleted everything. I wasn't to worry because I still had those files. I could live without the files from the previous years. This morning I noticed everything else is gone. This year's files aren't in the list of what I can recover. It only shows 5000. I'm going to thoroughly look through the list then delete what I don't need. That might free up more for me to view.