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Lost File Dates after OS Upgrade

M

metauser

macrumors newbie
Original poster
Aug 6, 2020
9
0
A friend of mine lost all of their file dates, essentially the metadata, after an upgrade to High Sierra on an older PowerBook. Is there any way to recover that?

There is a program on the Windows side which does precisely that, but I cannot find any Mac software which will accomplish it. I would appreciate any suggestions.

Thanks
 
Is there any kind of backup available?
Even for some of the files?
 
I believe she has a nearly identical folder with her documents on another machine that was cloned.

Wouldn't the cloning and importing that folder into this machine also change the metadata?
 
update:

My friend is no technophile, and now that I further questioned her the dates on the files have not been expunged. What's actually happening is that the search function fails to give a list of documents organize by file dates.


Is there a way to fix this, or is there a third party file search program for Mac OS X that will search with an option for organizing by date?

Since originally posting this I see that there is a way to rebuild spotlight after an OS upgrade. This would seem to me to be a solution, but as her files are spread out throughout the computer it is difficult to consolidate all of them into a folder and drag it onto spotlight. Is there another way to do this?

Thanks
,
 
Last edited:
are you saying that there is a different way to display or organize the results from spotlight? When my friend searches now using it, only recent files from July show up. Before the upgrade, a list of all of her files organized by date showed up, going back far in time.
 
Don't use "Spotlight Search" for a search when you want organized results. Using a Finder search is a much more powerful way to implement the Spotlight database.

There's a search bar in Finder windows. I don't know of an Apple Support page that explains it well but this is a pretty good explanation in video form:

macmost.com

Complex File Searches Using the macOS Finder

If you use the Find function in the Finder you can perform file searches that are much more complex than using Spotlight. You can add many pieces of criteria to the search other than a single search term. If you know how, you can use logic to combine search criteria and add very specific...
macmost.com macmost.com
 
As I am really a Windows user, I plead ignorance. I thought that spotlight was integrated into Finder search. So if, in fact, after the OS upgrade finder searches no longer pull up the full history of documents, is this fixable through the parameters or criteria of finder search? Is there a way to add folders to the search function?

She actually has three machines, and two of them were upgraded to different OSs. However, after upgrade finder search seems to have changed in all of them. I'll check out the video tomorrow morning.

Thanks
 
Thanks, fishrman, for your suggestions. I looked over a number of third-party applications and also came to the conclusion that FAF would be a good choice, particularly because of its easy interface, and its use of Boolean search techniques rather than indexing to find files. Plus, the paid version of it has credibility from his inclusion in the Apple Store.

The long and the short of it is that the beta version installed easily on her computer, and now she is up and running with all of her old files showing up.

Some time ago when I had a problem with indexing on my Windows machine I started using Wise Jet Search, and thought that there was a good chance of a Mac OS equivalent, and FAF is it.

Thanks for your valuable input!
 
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Beats me. I don't have the machine in front of me, but it's a 15 inch model with a screen resolution (I believe) of 1440 x 900, and it was upgraded by my computer techs in Los Angeles to High Sierra! When I asked her to look at her specs it definitely had an Intel chip.

Here's a link to the article about installing Sierra (if not High Sierra) on a PC, presumably running an Intel processor. The article mentions that Apple disapproves of such installations, but the point here is about feasibility.

How to Install macOS Sierra on Any Supported Intel-based PC - Tech Fire

macOS Sierra and El Capitan Hackintosh instructions, tutorials, step-by-step how to guides and installation videos; Hackintosh systems, parts and more.
techfire.in techfire.in
 
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I am the original poster, and I simply miss spoke. It's a MacBook Pro with an Intel i7 in it. And it is running High Sierra without a hiccup.
 
I am the original poster, and I simply misspoke. It is a MacBook Pro with an Intel i7, and it is running High Sierra without a hiccup.
 
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