MacOS – Why aren’t mp3 files I deleted by accident showing up in the Trash

macostrash

I accidentally deleted all the mp3 files on my computer (as opposed to just the ones in my downloads folder). There were a lot of files (around 2,000) so it took a while to delete but now, although at the bottom trash says it holds 2,500 files, they don't show up.

I need to drag these back onto my computer into their respective folders but I can't find them.

I am running Mac OS X 10.8 (Leopard) on an iMac.

Any assistance would be much appreciated!

Best Answer

Yes I do, is there a command to move them to another folder? In the short term I don't mind where they are, as long as they're not sitting in the trash waiting to get deleted!

Answering down here to have enough room.

  1. Create a new folder to move all these files from the Trash into. It can be anything, for this example I'll create a folder called "undeleted" on the Desktop.
  2. Open up a Terminal window, and navigate to the Trash: cd ~/.Trash.
  3. Confirm that the stuff you want is there: ls -a.
  4. Move the mp3s: 
    mv *.mp3 ~/Desktop/undeleted
    . If you create a different folder somewhere else, the easiest way to get its path is to drag it into the Terminal window. Type in 
    mv *.mp3
    including the trailing space, then drag the folder you want the files to go into into the window - it'll automatically fill in the correct path. The * wildcard will match any .mp3 it finds.
  5. If you have any AAC encoded songs, repeat the above, but change the extension to .m4a: 
    mv *.m4a ~/Desktop/undeleted
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