Accidentally deleted an .indd file and now it's not in the trash. Help!!!!

Report · Jun 13, 2019

Hi everybody,

I'm using macOS mojave 10.14.5. It's fully updated, as is my 14.0.2 InDesign.

Last night, after spending over a month to create the latest issue of our newspaper, I accidentally deleted the original .indd files for the project. Please don't ask how, or why; it was 1 A.M. and I thought that I was deleting extraneous copies of the files—not the original (and only) files, as it later turned out.

Still, it didn't strike me as too big a problem. I'm an experienced Mac user. In this situation, my first instinct was to go to the trash. I figured I'd simply pull the files back out into my finder—no harm no foul. But when I opened the trash, they weren't there!!

The files I had just dragged into my trash were nowhere to be found, and 24 hours later they still haven't appeared in the trash. Since last night I have relaunched Finder, researched different downloadable file recovery systems, read a couple dozen of these forum posts, and pulled out. . .oh, around 80% of my hair.

In the trash, I see other .indd files that I've discarded over the past few months; I see the duplicate PDFs that were made from the missing .indd files before I lost them; I see .jpgs and .psds and .pngs; I see all kinds of trash. everything else is present, as it should be. Yet, I see no .indd files from yesterday—nothing to suggest that the files I had just dragged into the trash ever existed. I even considered that the date stamps could have been from before yesterday, so I opened every .indd file in the trash. I can confidently say that none of the files in the trash are the ones I seek.

Is this an Adobe glitch? And—more importantly—can it be fixed?! Can I recover my 9 missing .indd files? I dearly need them for my work and am truly baffled by this situation.

Help—please.

Thanks,

Nat

Report · Jun 28, 2019

To Bob and Rob: I make copies, I’m careful. I keep a copy of anything irreplaceable on my external hard drive as well as on my local disc. Sometimes in more places. I fail to see the advice either of you are offering though?

But your manual backup obviously failed. For backups to a local drive, incremental backup software like Apple's Time Machine, or Retrospect is considerably safer.

Bob's link is showing you how to use Dropbox for a cloud backup system, which offers effortless, off site, incremental backups—the files are sync'd to a cloud server and not a vulnerable local drive.

You CC subscription offers a similar service—typically 1TB of server space. With Dropbox you have to pay $99 per year for the extra 1TB.

With your cloud account all you have to do is save to the installed Creative Cloud Files folder and get an automated backup. You can use the cloud backup for any file type, it’s not limited to Adobe formats.

Here I've saved an ID file to the root Creative Cloud Files folder, and if I click on Files>View on Web in the Cloud app I can see the file has automatically sync’d up to the Adobe server—I didn't have to do anything.

If I accidentally delete the file, it is removed from the Synced Files list on the server, but it still can be recovered from the server's Deleted list:

Report · Jun 27, 2019

It's not an Adobe-specific problem.

Adobe InDesign simply doesn't have access to the file system on such level.

Just to be sure: when you drag files to the Trash, they actually remain on the volume. But in order to retrieve them, you must have that volume connected ! Each volume has its own Trash, although the Trash is represented as one contiguous folder-like window.

Report · Jun 27, 2019

Thanks Peter, that’s really interesting. Here’s the million dollar question now: is there any way that I can connect my trash ”posthumously” to retrieve those files?

Report · Jun 27, 2019

The file appears to be lost.

If you're smart, you'll learn from your experience the importance of keeping backups, and avoid having it happen again in the future,

Report · Jun 29, 2019

https://forums.adobe.com/people/Martlet+Proco wrote
Im bummed. My answer has not been solved. I should maybe try on some Mac forums instead. It’s such an Adobe-specific problem though. Thank you all for all of your great help. I’m sorry it didn’t work for me.

Hi Martlet,

I found this possible solution on an Apple forum. It may be a Mojave bug. Please post back here if this helps.

Files are deleted immediately and can&#39… - Apple Community

~ Jane

Report · Jun 14, 2019

In the trash, I see other .indd files that I've discarded over the past few months;

That indicates that you haven't actually emptied the trash for months—is it possible you moved the files via dragging, but missed the trash? Have you carefully checked the entire contents of the Desktop Folder in a list view (Finder>Go>Desktop)?

Also, this is a long shot but you might try a utility like invisibliX, which lets you see hidden files in the finder:

https://invisiblix.read-write.fr/

hidden folders that start with . are revealed

Also, going forward Bob suggested working out of a Dropbox folder, which syncs files to their cloud server where deleted files can be retrieved. Your CC account has a similar feature, any files you save into your /Users/username/Creative Cloud Files folder get sync'd to Adobe’s server and accidentally deleted files can be retrieved.

Report · Jun 14, 2019

https://forums.adobe.com/people/rob+day wrote
Also, this is a long shot but you might try a utility like invisibliX, which lets you see hidden files in the finder:
https://invisiblix.read-write.fr/
hidden folders that start with . are revealed

Since Sierra hidden files can be displayed (press again to hide them) with CMD + SHIFT + .

Report · Jun 14, 2019

Thanks.