Finder on Mac offers us powerful features when it comes to organization and the ability to search for our files. We accumulate a ton of files on our Mac over time, and using folders is a great way to keep things organized and tame the chaos. Show
Keeping your Mac organized means getting rid of stuff when you don’t need it and making sure that everything is neatly in its place. In this article, we’re going to talk about how to recover deleted folders on Mac in case you’ve deleted some when you wish that you would have saved them. Is It Possible to Recover Deleted Folders on Mac?Yes, there are multiple ways to recover deleted folders on Mac. Some of the methods we can use are macOS built-in features while others require us to download and use third-party data recovery software. How to Recover Deleted Folders on MacWe will go over some of the best and most proven ways to recover deleted folders on our Mac below. I recommend that you follow them in order. If you’ve already attempted a method, simply skip to the next one. First, let’s look at how we can recover deleted folders by using the Trash. Method 1: Recover Deleted Folders Using the TrashThe Trash is where everything that is deleted on our Mac goes and is saved until we either manually empty it or it’s set to automatically empty itself. I love this feature as sometimes we delete something and then wish that we had kept it. The Trash will allow us to recover it and put the folder back onto our Mac. You don’t need to download anything to use the Trash and this feature is free.
If you’re not seeing your folder in the Trash, then it’s possible that you’ve already emptied the Trash, or your Trash is set to automatically empty on its own. Let’s move on to what we can do if your Trash has already been emptied. If you think that your Trash empties itself on its own, we go over how to change that setting later in the article in the section “How to Protect Folders on Your Mac”. Method 2: Recover From a Time Machine BackupTime Machine is a free built-in macOS backup tool that will automatically back up your folders, personal data, apps, photos, documents, music, and everything else that you have on your Mac. If you’ve been backing up with Time Machine, we can go into our backup and recover the folders that have been deleted even if our Trash has been emptied.
Later in the article, we will discuss how to set up a Time Machine backup under the section “How to Protect Your Folders on Mac”. Method 3: Recover Deleted Folders Using Disk DrillDisk Drill allows us to scan our Mac for deleted folders and any other type of data that you’ve lost. You can download and scan your Mac for your deleted folders all for free. There is a large selection of data recovery software on the market these days, and I want to point out why I like using Disk Drill the most out of all the other options.
That’s all that there is to it. You have now recovered your folders and any other files that were located within them. Now, let’s talk about what we can do to protect our folders from here on out. How to Protect Your Folders on MacProtecting your data is an important practice that you can implement to ensure that in the future if you recognize that you’ve deleted a folder, you can easily get it back. These methods below are easy to implement and should take you no time to set up and have ready. Tip 1: Turn off Automatic Trash Deletion and Turn on Emptying ConfirmationWithin your Finder preferences, there is an option to have your Trash empty automatically which could cause you to not have the chance to recover a deleted folder. There is also another option that can allow you to empty your Trash without confirming that you want to empty it. This means that there wouldn’t be a warning message. I would recommend that you turn off automatic deletion and turn on the confirmation message. Both settings can be changed easily.
Now you will have a chance to recover your data from the Trash as now it will stay there until you decide to empty it. If you do decide to empty your Trash, you will also now receive a confirmation message to ensure that you want to empty the Trash. Tip 2: Back Up Using Time MachineI never thought that data loss was going to happen to me, but I’ve had a couple of occasions when my external hard drive backup saved my data. I’m happy that I was backing up using Time Machine because if I wasn’t, I might not have been able to recover my data. Time Machine is a free built-in free backup utility provided by Apple that you can use to back up all of the data on your Mac. Using Time Machine is quite easy to set up and use too.
I would recommend that you plug in and back up to your external hard drive once a week or whenever you make big changes to the data on our Mac. If you’re using a desktop Mac, you can just leave the external hard drive plugged into your Mac and it can back up all on its own. ConclusionWe accumulate and delete data all the time. The Trash and Disk Drill are both powerful ways to save our data and get it back onto our Mac if need be. Protecting our data is just as important as being able to recover it. Implementing extra steps in the Trash to ensure we want to delete our data and backing up using Time Machine will help us keep our data safe. Read also How to Recover Mac Data From an External Hard Drive Without Software How to Recover Deleted Files on Mac FAQ
If the folders have already been deleted from the Trash, then we will want to use Disk Drill to recover them.
Where Can I Find My Recently Deleted Folder?The Recently Deleted Folder has to do with photos rather than folders. If you want to access your Recently Deleted Folder to recover some photos, then follow the steps below. Where are recently deleted files on Mac?To do this, proceed as follows:. Step 1: Open Trash. Double-click the Trash icon in the dock. You'll see a list of all files that are still in the Trash on your Mac. You can easily open the Trash from the dock.. Step 2: Select the file and move it to the desktop. To restore a file, double-click it and select “Put Back”.. Where is the recently deleted folder?Method 2: Check the Recycle Bin. Open the Recycle Bin by double-clicking its icon.. Find and select the folders or files you want to restore.. Take note of the original location of the data so you can find it after recovery.. Right-click on the selection and choose Restore.. Where is the recently deleted folder on Mac notes?View a recently deleted note. In the Notes app on your Mac, click Recently Deleted, then select the note.. Do one of the following: Recover a recently deleted note: Drag a note from the Recently Deleted folder to another folder in the sidebar.. How do I find my recently deleted files?Recover Deleted Files. Look in the trash bin.. Use your system file history backup tool.. Use a file recovery program.. Save a copy on a cloud based service.. |