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Participant
August 31, 2017
Answered

VANISHED INDESIGN FILE

  • August 31, 2017
  • 2 replies
  • 5461 views

I was working on a book and the Mac started getting sluggish ... I was working on a huge project  - so I had been saving my BOOK systematically (250 Pages which had been edited over a week) and Saved again before quitting Indesign - Rebooted the iMAC computer and started Indesign and there is NO SIGN of any 31st August saved file.  It has completely disappeared. Indesign does not go into recovery mode.  WHERE IS ALL OF MY DAYS AND DAYS OF HARD WORK GONE?  HELP!!!!!!

    This topic has been closed for replies.
    Correct answer ASCSWITZERLAND

    Panic Over - Indeed I did and found it after scouring the 21 incremental

    backups I have made. This was a very strange situation as it was not where

    it was supposed to be and while present was rather hidden in a folder that

    I was not saving the files to.... I thought that it was weird that it would

    just disappear. However it was really disconcerting to not have it appear

    in the Recents list (That had gone back to early August which was also very

    strange.)

    By the way I have no InDesign Recovery File in Caches - Does that only

    happen when there is a crash ...

    2 replies

    Derek Cross
    Community Expert
    Community Expert
    August 31, 2017

    No doubt you'll find your file but treat it as a cautionary tale – always make regular incremental copies of your work and save them externally as well as locally.

    telenik51801851
    Participant
    November 26, 2021

    Yes, I learned my lesson to download a copy of my Indesign file I'm working on, perhaps at the end of every day. Today my Indesign file disappeared and it disappeared for good. I was just about to publish it online when something glitched and the program shutdown. The duplicate file I created when it looked like I was having problems, disappeared too. An adobe rep shared my screen and he confirmed it was indeed gone. All he could explain was it must have been a corrupt file of some sort. He didn't know. So, while my memory is good, I'm working to redo it, but it sure has been a sad reality.

     

    BobLevine
    Community Expert
    Community Expert
    August 31, 2017

    Have you searched your computer for all .INDD files? It's highly unlikely that a file would just disappear.

    ASCSWITZERLANDAuthorCorrect answer
    Participant
    August 31, 2017

    Panic Over - Indeed I did and found it after scouring the 21 incremental

    backups I have made. This was a very strange situation as it was not where

    it was supposed to be and while present was rather hidden in a folder that

    I was not saving the files to.... I thought that it was weird that it would

    just disappear. However it was really disconcerting to not have it appear

    in the Recents list (That had gone back to early August which was also very

    strange.)

    By the way I have no InDesign Recovery File in Caches - Does that only

    happen when there is a crash ...

    Om Nath Jha
    Legend
    September 1, 2017

    Hi ascswitzerland,

    While you make changes to an InDesign document, InDesign performs a mini-save of the changes once every minute. InDesign stores these changes in temporary files in the InDesign Recovery folder, adds the changes to the document, and then deletes the temporary files every time you choose File > Save. If InDesign shuts down unexpectedly, InDesign attempts to use these temporary files to recover unsaved changes to the document. Here's the detailed article:

    Recover InDesign documents

    Regards,

    Om