Clean My Mac3

[Roni Rumsey]

Hi Brian,

Just accidentally removed some files that I need using Clean my Mac.  AND my EHD was plugged in.  Is there any way to retrieve them?  

[Brian]

What files did you remove? Where were they located originally? Main drive or EHD?

Do you have a Time Machine drive because recovering files off a Mac is tough and you need recovery software to do it. 

[Brian]

I also let CMM3 just do the default system stuff, NEVER for everything else because I learned the hard way that file recovery is damn near impossible on a Mac. At least without special software installed prior to you deleting files. 

[Roni Rumsey]

I have a Time Machine drive and EHD.  The files were on main drive and EHD hadn't backed up yet.

[Brian]

What files were they? 

[Roni Rumsey]

They were NEF files that I thought I had unchecked when looking through the "Large File" option.

 

[Brian]

Yeah, I never use the remove the "Large Files" option. It's nice to know that they are there, but just for cases like this...it's tough to get files back on a Mac. Even when you use recovery software, it will find everything that's deleted, and usually put it back as a .TIFF file or something similar, not a .nef. Though you can get lucky.

It's too bad that the Mac OS doesn't have a "Undo" feature, like here is the last 10 files that you deleted. Since the Mac OS is based upon Unix, it's tough to recover lost files. Basically, you need photo recovery software. Wondershare Photo Recovery Software looks interesting and it's free to try.