I Deleted ALL My Caches & Preferences Folders, Help!

[HappyDude20]

So, I'm dumb.

I read this article online, dugg on Digg 'bout making your Mac faster. One of the tips suggested deleting my Caches Folders, since they accumilate over time. Also to delete my Preferences folders; the article said that even if all the preferences are deleted Mac OS X will create preferences over time since the system needs them.

So, what I did, stupidly...was:

I went to Home (aka my name)>Library>Caches.

I deleted everything in Caches. But then. But then! For some reason I went to my Macintosh HD>Library>and deleted everything in my Caches folder and also my Preferences folder.

Everything went to the trash and I thought everywhere was good until I tried to go online, using my WiFi as I always do but ALL of setting were gone. No locations were present, nothing. This so far is only under my Network Preferences. I haven't even gone into my other settings...

i'm glad I didn't permanently delete everything from my trash so it's all still there, though I have no idea what goes where in order to get everything back...that is, if I need it back.

Iono, this is my first time doing anything like this on my Mac so don't know how dire the situation is. I managed to get back online by creating a new WiFi location all over again.

 

[miles01110]

I don't suppose you have a TM Backup either, right?

 

[iBecks]

I suggest you give MainMenu a try if you want to do some cleaning up of caches etc.

 

[miles01110]

The files are still in the Trash, right? They must have different names. I'm willing to bet that the first Caches folder you moved goes back to ~/Library/Caches, while the second (with a different name) goes to Macintosh HD/Library.

Next time, don't rush to try the first thing you see on digg, especially if you don't know what you're doing.

 

[HappyDude20]

The files are still in the Trash, right? They must have different names. I'm willing to bet that the first Caches folder you moved goes back to ~/Library/Caches, while the second (with a different name) goes to Macintosh HD/Library.

Next time, don't rush to try the first thing you see on digg, especially if you don't know what you're doing.

Well, like a dumbas$ I did note move the folder itself to the trash, just the contents of each into the trash.

 

[miles01110]

Well, like a dumbas$ I did note move the folder itself to the trash, just the contents of each into the trash.

Wow. Too bad you didn't do this under Snow Leopard with its "Put Back" feature or whatever it's called. Anyway, I think you're SOL unless you have a TM backup.