Restoring Files From the Trash in OSX

December 2, 2012 11:31 AM

How do I take a bunch of files that are in the Trash in OSX (Mountain Lion) and restore them to where they used to be?

I was trying to delete two music files from iTunes and somehow deleted about two hundred. I have an iMac running Mountain Lion. Sorting the Trash by "Date Modified" seems to put all the things I just deleted together, so it's easy to select them all at once--but now what? I would like to just put them all back where they were before, yet I can't find an option to do that. Surely it's possible. But how?

posted by Pater Aletheias to computers & internet (5 answers total)

Right click. "put back".
posted by Namlit at 11:36 AM on December 2, 2012

Right click doesn't give me a "put back" option. Just "Open," "Open With," "Empty Trash" and several other things, but no "Put Back."
posted by Pater Aletheias at 11:41 AM on December 2, 2012

Hmm. When I click on "File" in the menu bar, I can see the "Put Back" option but it's grayed out. Clearly I inadvertently did some kind of nuclear delete that made the files forget everything about their previous lives, including where they came from. Well, fixing this is going to take me all day.
posted by Pater Aletheias at 11:46 AM on December 2, 2012

just highlight them all and drag them back into itunes..?
posted by HuronBob at 12:05 PM on December 2, 2012

Okay, that helped. Dragged them all into a new folder and added that back to iTunes. Might be a little disorganized, but at least the files are there. Thanks.
posted by Pater Aletheias at 12:18 PM on December 2, 2012