Sometimes "things" happen!

[Dave2002]

I may have just deleted a small folder by mistake in Mac OS X. Yes, Yes, Yes - I know it should be backed up, and in Time Machine or in some other drive, but it may not be. It most probably has gone. It probably doesn't matter!

Most of the methods for recovery seem to rely on actually having an idea what the file or folder was, but if the deletion is/was accidental this information may not be available. I thought there might be a log somewhere of files which have been deleted, so I went looking for one.
At least this could allow me to take a view on whether the file loss is inconsequential, or something I really need to be concerned about.

I did find a log of system transactions, which is detailed - very detailed - but nothing showed up relating to deleting files or folders from the Trash. This is, I know, shutting the door after the horse has bolted, but many of us are operating in a state of ignorance in which we are unaware of problems until they happen, and then when they do, discover that there was some unknown or arcane piece of information which they should have noted some while back.

Does anyone know if MacOS X keeps a log of files which are deleted from the Trash, and if so, how can I view it?

[Stunsworth]

I don't have a mic on either of my Macs, but have you tried asking Siri "what were the last files I deleted" or similar?

[Dave2002]

Thanks. Interesting idea, but I don't think that would work on the machine in question - running Mountain Lion, and I think no Siri.

If I'd thought of this in advance I could probably have made a utility to log all the files on a daily basis, and then various methods could be used to find out which ones were deleted.

[Stunsworth]

Thanks. Interesting idea, but I don't think that would work on the machine in question - running Mountain Lion, and I think no Siri.

Ah, Siri only arrived in the latest version of the OS.

[Dave2002]

I really am quite surprised, given the seemingly extreme level of detail of the system log, that there isn't a logfille for the Trash.

[Anastasius]

If you have carried on using your Mac then you are probably stuffed. Otherwise there is this from the web - albeit 2012

If you stop using the drive it's possible to recover deleted files that have not been overwritten by using recovery software such as Data Rescue II, File Salvageor TechTool Pro. Each of the preceding come on bootable CDs to enable usage without risk of writing more data to the hard drive. Two free alternatives are Disk Drill and TestDisk.

[Dave2002]

If you have carried on using your Mac then you are probably stuffed. Otherwise there is this from the web - albeit 2012

If you stop using the drive it's possible to recover deleted files that have not been overwritten by using recovery software such as Data Rescue II, File Salvageor TechTool Pro. Each of the preceding come on bootable CDs to enable usage without risk of writing more data to the hard drive. Two free alternatives are Disk Drill and TestDisk.

Thanks, though I'm just about reconciled to the situation. I really don't know what happened, or if I did in fact lose anything, or at any rate anything significant. I intended to delete a moderate sized folder which was already backed up, but something else may have gone instead. Given that mostly I have multiple files, and originals (often photos) kept on other media as well, or files are email copies, then the likelihood is that nothing important has been lost.

I have successfully rescued files from discs before - and indeed on a PC it can be quite revealing to see what's on the drives. I did fairly recently recover files from an SDHC card for someone else. The card appeared to have lost formatting, but I found tools which enabled me to recover most of the photos on that card, and transfer all the photos to a DVD.

For laptops (e.g MBPs) which are not stretched to the limit, Time Machine should recover most things, even if a hard drive is not attached, as TM will (according to the manuals and other information sources) use spare space on the drive to do temporary backups (snapshots) - but for that to work there has to be sufficient spare space. I tried, in the hope that something would appear, but it didn't. I have no successful experience of using the snapshot features of TM to recover files, so I don't know for sure whether it ever works. If the information is correct, then anyone using a Mac such as an MBP with (say) a minimum of 50 Gbytes spare memory should be able to use TM snapshots to recover any recent losses due to modest accidental deletions.

I had hoped that a log file would have tracked deletions, as that would have enabled me to check very quickly whether there was anything I really was that bothered about rescuing. I did buy another drive for use as a backup drive a few weeks ago to replace the one which I bricked, but that was hurriedly allocated to another problem which came out of the blue, so was not put into service on this MBP as I'd intended.