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reversing the placement of Finder's "images folder" contents into the waste bin

A

alexlerock

macrumors newbie
Original poster
Dec 9, 2009
13
0
France; Atlanta on 28 Dec.
Thinking that the contents of Finder's images folder were merely a history of images accessed, I placed the entire contents (2,020 images) of the folder into the waste bin. I realized my error upon opening my photos folder and seeing that no photos appeared. :eek:

Is there a way to reverse that transfer of images into the waste bin? :confused:

I couldn't highlight and move all the waste bin contents back into the images folder, so I tried moving just one image from the waste bin into the folder, but without success.

Thank you.
 
Did you empty the trash after you deleted the folder?

If not, you can open the Trash by clicking on the waste bin, find the folder and drag the folder back to the proper location. Or, as dejo suggests, you can use the Put Back command from the secondary menu, but I believe that is only available on Snow Leopard.

If you emptied the trash, you may be able to purchase data recovery software or professional services. If you secure emptied the trash (which is NOT done by default), then, unfortunately, you are out of luck.

You say that you tried moving one image back, but couldn't. Did you receive an error message? If so, what message did your Mac give you?

Jeff
 
The folder that I emptied into waste basket is one of the three folders that automatically appears on the left side of a Finder window, the other two being fims and documents.

I did not place the folder in the waste bin; I moved all contents into the bin.

I don't see a "put back" command. My OS version is Leopard. If "put back" exists in that version, under what menu heading is it?

When I double click on the bin, a Finder window opens listing all individual bin items. When I attempt to click-and-drag a single image into the folder from the window, a white circle with white bar through it appears. The item does not save into the folder. Also, from one of the keys atop the Finder window, there is a command for copying the items in the bin, but I can't figure a way to paste into the folder.

I discovered a couple of moments ago that my actions deprived me of Word and Excel functionality. I get error messages when opening both.

So, considering the latest reply to my posting, how do I restore from backup?

Thanks.
 
alexlerock said:
I don't see a "put back" command. My OS version is Leopard. If "put back" exists in that version, under what menu heading is it?
Click to expand...
Its Snow Leopard (10.6) only

alexlerock said:
I discovered a couple of moments ago that my actions deprived me of Word and Excel functionality. I get error messages when opening both.
Click to expand...
Ouch.

alexlerock said:
So, considering the latest reply to my posting, how do I restore from backup?

Thanks.
Click to expand...

OK I think I see what you did, you deleted every single image, and not just the 'Pictures folder' which is what I was originally envisaging. Thats really bad because you will undoubtedly have deleted some system files, which other users may likely need as well,as you discovered with Word for example.

So that is massive damage and far messier than just restoring a single users data.

So, with Time Machine, navigate back to a time before you executed that, and then click restore on the HD.

HOWEVER, it may be that this is nt good enough, and you may need to do a full reinstall and then select the time period you want to restore from your TM backup at install time, (I am 99% certain you can do this see http://docs.info.apple.com/article.html?path=Mac/10.5/en/15638.html ) choosing (obviously) a time before you did this.

If its a carbon copy or super duper backup you'll have to use their interfaces to restore the whole system , from a backup taken before you executed the trash move. You'll lose anything from in between the two times.

If you only have backups of user data, I think you have a big problem, because you can restore your data but you have almost certainly trashed your system, with lots and lots of small files nuked that will cause problems all the time, so you'll have to reinstall from system disks, copy back user data and then reinstall additional apps such as word and excel.

I would wait and double check with other users here to make sure I have all this exact;y right before going ahead.
 
Thank you all for your help! :cool:

Realizing that I made a big mess and I hadn't hadn't anything to save that I couldn't park in Yahoo mail for a day, I reinstalled the OS and all useful applications that I had before, wiping out all that was in memory. It took four hours to reload everything, but I think that it was a time-saving approach (when I take into account you helpful Mac users who would reply to my posting).

Again, thank you all.
 
I know this is after the fact, but I think if the OP had simply dragged the pictures out of the trash to the desktop and then into the folder it would have worked. I've never had luck trying to drag from the trash to any folder, only to the desktop. In every instance where I have tried, if I moved to the desktop and then to a folder, it worked just fine.
 
skybolt said:
I know this is after the fact, but I think if the OP had simply dragged the pictures out of the trash to the desktop and then into the folder it would have worked. I've never had luck trying to drag from the trash to any folder, only to the desktop. In every instance where I have tried, if I moved to the desktop and then to a folder, it worked just fine.
Click to expand...

That might work with an actual folder, but "all images" is not a folder, its just a listing of everything that's an image, so really its just a search result. So putting things "back" into it doesn't make any sense. The images exist in numerous different locations obviously.

It would be interesting to know how long a 'put back' would take, likely to be many many hours I would think.
 
In reply to Tumbleweed666, I also thought that the contents of the folder were “search results.” However, my Photo site subsequently was absent photos and Word and Excel bombed, so it seems I moved more than tracking info (but I am not sure).

In trying to prevent unwanted access to those three folders under my current (yesterday’s) configuration, I found that those three folders remain accessible to a guest-account user even though home folder and documents folder of the main user are not viewable/accessible by the guest user. This strikes me as a security-logic blunder. After lots of tinkering around, I found that the only way I can prevent access to those three folders (images, films, documents) by a guest-account user is to apply the Parental Control tool “Use Simple Finder” to the guest account.

Maybe this issue is corrected in later versions of the OS (mine is 10.5.5).

Regards
 
alexlerock said:
In reply to Tumbleweed666, I also thought that the contents of the folder were “search results.” However, my Photo site subsequently was absent photos and Word and Excel bombed, so it seems I moved more than tracking info (but I am not sure).
Click to expand...

Perhaps I was a bit loose with my wording. Yes its effectively a search "result", but that doesn't mean the files that are listed are not the actual files themselves (which is what they are), eg its much more than a "dead" list of names. So, do something to one of the search 'results' and you are doing it to the actual file, rather than (say) an alias, or some text that has the file name. Pretty much the same as for any search in fact, even on Windows !

alexlerock said:
In trying to prevent unwanted access to those three folders under my current (yesterday’s) configuration, I found that those three folders remain accessible to a guest-account user even though home folder and documents folder of the main user are not viewable/accessible by the guest user. This strikes me as a security-logic blunder
Click to expand...

First, try going to preferences and unticking 'show hard disks'. Then you dont get that finder window.
Second, the guest user (or any other user) may be able to see some images in that window but they wont be able to delete them, they will be asked to enter an admin users name and password.
Third, if you weren't running as admin user, you wouldn't have had this issue in the first place. I have three users, which are the two main users (non admin) and an admin user, used only for things that require admin. That would have stopped you putting them in the trash .. or at least, it might have made you think twice?

Which leads me to ask, if you thought those file names were just a search result, then what space exactly did you think you were saving by dragging it to the trash ?? :) ??
 
Thanks for the tip on the security settings--I'll check it out.

I assumed I was deleting junk similar to what I delete when deleting the history of Internet sites I've visited. I read a long time ago that clearing out Internet-site history is useful.
 
Under me as user, I click Finder/preferences/sidebar and then remove checkmarks for the bottom three items, the three folders whose contents I do not want a guest to see, even if they can't do anything with them because they are locked out (but they can still see the names of the items in the three folders).

Well, then those three folders do not appear in a new Finder window that I open. That's ok, but I am concerned about a guest user seeing the folders, not me. So, I log off my use and log in as guest. Well, the three folders still appear. It does not make a difference of how I configure Finder when I log in as me; once I log off and log in as guest, I can go into Finder preference and make change the sidebar settings.

So, I'm back to Parental Guidance, Simple Finder as the solution.
 
How about creating a new user, call it Mac Guest or such like, non-admin (obviously :), then reset the checkmarks (thanks for that by the way I didnt know you could do that, I really dont see the point of the "all images" when it includes system files , at most surely it should only show *your* images ?
Unless you have someone who is likely to go in, tick on the checkmarks to see the "folders" again,and then try and delete the files, that would preserve the settings.
And as long as they are not an admin user, they wont be able to delete anyone else's files anyway.

But not running as an admin user is the best way to go in any case.
 
Tumble... Good idea, thanks. Now the laptop requires a sign-in by all users. The enhancement here is that if the laptop is stolen, the thief will not be able to use it ("guest" is disabled). But I still apply Simple Finder to the non-me user so that (1) my files are private and (2) there is not a chance that any guest will cause a laptop problem by moving info from those three dangerous (and not very useful, from my perspective) folders.

Regards, Alex
 
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