Folder Recovery Free Software

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Manases Yatnalkar

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Jul 27, 2024, 7:20:53 PM7/27/24

to adihdechal

My Mac's hard drive (running Mojave) suffered some corruption recently, and I found myself unable to boot into the system. I am able to boot into Recovery Mode, and my intent was to rescue the important data sitting in /Users/(my username), but to my surprise, the entire /Users/ folder is just not there when I try to access it via Terminal.

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I am very hesitant to reinstall MacOS right now, because IF /Users/ has been compromised in the corruption, I don't want to do anything further that will prevent it from being recovered somehow. In other words, I am trying not to write any new data to the drive at all.

I had my "Macintosh HD" drive mounted as /Volumes/Macintosh HD, but /Volumes/Macintosh HD/Users was empty. It turns out that there is a separate "Macintosh HD - Data" partition that also needs to be mounted. I used diskutil apfs unlock "Macintosh HD - Data" and entered my password, and then I found my missing Users directories in /Volumes/Macintosh HD - Data/Users.

I was able to use Disk Drill recovery software set to "deep scan" on the entire contents of the physical drive - and somehow, the software was able to reveal the Users folder. Thankfully, I was able to extract everything I needed from there (as well as files I didn't even want anymore, but that's a small price to pay).

I cannot offer any explanations for why nothing else seemed to work in getting the Users folder to be visible in Terminal/sudo, whether in Recovery Mode or after taking the drive to another computer, regardless of many different ways of initiating chflags -R nohidden on the ENTIRE partition, trying extremely convoluted chmod settings, verifying permissions, manually searching every folder I could imagine, mounting the partition in every way I know how, even trying to mount OTHER partitions on the physical disk that clearly were unrelated to the partition in question. I'm sure I'm forgetting a handful of other things that I tried along the way as well - and trust me when I say I tried everything I could find, even beyond the suggestions on this site, and I tried them correctly, with nearly 20 years of Mac experience under my belt. That's not to say I am a perfect human by any means (obviously), but I am also not a fumbling noob when it comes to this stuff.

I have no doubt that in time, someone will see this thread and have a definitive answer for the troubles I experienced. I absolutely encourage that person to offer their knowledge to the world, because whatever the true solution was, it is not well documented knowledge as of the time of this writing. Either that, or it was something so specific to my situation that it proved crippling and against the normal workings of macOS as a whole.

Instead of removing the SSD, you can try using Target Disk mode. This allows you to boot from the Internal SSD on another computer. Try checking the /var directory. Have you tried First Aid on Macintosh HD (or whatever the OS Drive is)? Reinstalling macOS does not affect any settings or user data so that isn't something to worry about. Can you see an entry for your user accounts in /Volumes/(OS Drive)/etc/passwd? If you don't then that means that all your user accounts have been deleted. If you would like, you can also check /var/db/dslocal/nodes/Default/users and check if there are any .plist files for your user(s). You can also try installing macOS on an external hard drive using macOS Recovery then try booting up on the external drive to see if you can see the /Users directory on the Internal SSD. Good Luck!

Is it safe to delete the Recovery folders from my time machine backup? What will I lose? If it's the ability to recover from a TM backup, is it necessary? Can I recover from my Mac's own recovery partition and then recover the data on the TM backup instead?

You might, if you have other backups, try erasing the hard drive the Time Machine software is on completely and then setting up your Time Machine again. This solved an issue I had with TM that had backup folders that had peculiar contents in them since I last wrote.

Deleted a folder with a single file in it yesterday on my mac. Logged in via website today and can see the file and folder in the Deleted Files tab. When I select to restore it does not restore the file to the location before deleting, or at all, anywhere. I am not experiencing any sync issues and the app reports all files are up to date. No error, no confirmation modal.

I had tried that... however I think I subsequently resolved the issue. It's likely because the folder name was not unique and the one I deleted yesterday was the same name as other previously deleted folders. I realized this when I went to the directory where the folder lived and then turned on SHOW DELETED FILES.

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My work supervisor instructed me to install the Dropbox app on my Macbook and shared a folder with me. I was incorrectly told to make the files available for offline viewing. Two days later my SSD was filled with several hundred GBs of content from our Dropbox folder.

The files need to be set to online-only but I still want to see the files in my local Dropbox folder on my Macbook SSD. After switching the shared folder to online-only the contents still appeared in my local folder so I uninstalled Dropbox and deleted the entire folder and emptied the trash about 3 days ago. I reinstalled Dropbox but the folder on my local drive remains empty. I can still access the files on my Dropbox online and those appear unaffected.

I think I want Smart Sync - though I'm confused on the difference between Smart Sync and Selective Sync (even after reading the "How to use Dropbox Smart Sync to save space" document. I just want to be able to access the files on my Macbook without them taking up hundreds of GBs of space.

I was able to re-download the missing shared folder and have it set to online only. I do not see options for selective sync vs. smart sync when I right-click the folder. I think it works the way I want it to now though because it is not taking up that much space on my local SSD. I can see all the files now though, which is exactly what I needed.

I deleted a file from my drop box on 5-17-2022. I went to the deleted files and it wasn't there. I also went to the events file, It show's that I deleted it on 5-17 but the file isn't there either. How can I recover it?

I deleted a file from my drop box on 5-17-2022. I went to the deleted files and it wasn't there. I also went to the events file, It show's that I deleted it on 5-17 but the file isn't there either. How can I recover it?

Did this post not resolve your issue? If so please give us some more information so we can try and help - please remember we cannot see over your shoulder so be as descriptive as possible!

I am trying to recover some data after a sudden case of hard drive corruption that has left my OS (Mojave) unable to boot. I am able to boot into Recovery Mode, and I can see the contents of the drive in Terminal (meaning the hard drive is not completely inaccessible). My plan was to move off all of my user data via Terminal. Normally that wouldn't be an issue for me, as I am experienced in Terminal enough to do that, but the issue I am facing is that my /Users/ folder is completely invisible when I try to find it via /Volumes/(OS partition name)/Users. I've tried to think of where else I could access it, but it is simply not anywhere that is obvious to me as someone who has almost 2 decades of Mac experience.

So, my question is, does Recovery Mode hide this folder (for security reasons, etc)? Or is it possible that the folder is somehow lost in the corruption? This seems unlikely, but I am really worried that this might be the case. I have an older computer running Sierra, and when I go into Recovery Mode on that one, I am definitely able to see the /Users/ folder with no problem. So, I am hoping that this invisibility is just a change with Mojave?

If all else fails, I have a hard drive enclosure arriving in a few days, which would hopefully allow me to access the files I need via another computer. I am just trying to get some answers for now about why the /Users/ folder is just completely missing, at least in Recovery Mode.