In OS X, how do I undelete the file or folder most recently put into the trash?

February 5, 2006 12:12 AM

In OS X, how do I undelete the file or folder most recently put into the trash?

Once in a while, I get a little overzealous with deleting, and I want to undelete the most recently deleted file. How do I do this, either with the base os or with an additional piece of software?

posted by mrkohrea to computers & internet (6 comments total)

Command-Z (undo)
posted by rajbot at 12:21 AM on February 5, 2006

or you can just click on the trash can in the dock, wait for the trash window to pop up in the finder, and drag whatever you want back out of there.
posted by planetkyoto at 12:45 AM on February 5, 2006

Note: Undo will not help you if you have already emptied the Trash. Emptying the Trash does not totally mean you're out of luck if you want that file back on your desktop, but in that case you will need some additional software that looks for files that have been marked for deletion but may or may not have been written over yet. I don't have a title to recommend from personal experience, but here's one that seems to work for a while in a free, unregistered mode.
posted by emelenjr at 6:17 AM on February 5, 2006

A clarification: when I go on my deleting sprees, I don't remember what it is that I just deleted, but I know that I just deleted it. In windows XP (gasp), you can sort the recycle bin by Date Deleted, which allows you to figure out the most recently deleted stuff easily. I'm wondering if there is a similar way in OS X to do something similar.
posted by mrkohrea at 2:16 PM on February 5, 2006

Yes; open the Trash can and sort by Date Modified, just like any other window. To do this, double click the Trash icon, then click once on 'Date Modified'. (You may have to first tell it to view the trash contents as a list, which is done by selecting View -> As List, or hitting command-2, or clicking the icon of a list in the window's command bar.)
posted by ikkyu2 at 9:47 PM on February 5, 2006

I've found that FileSalvage by SubRosaSoft is the best at recovering lost files. They have a demo on their website. I ran it and found the files I was looking for (it'll show a preview). Then I purchased the full version and got all my files back. It was really a life saver.
posted by MacJunkie at 12:09 PM on January 24, 2007