Images on desk top

I thought I was clearing a flash drive and dumped all my images (10,000 plus) in the trash. I retrieved the to the desk top. Is there a way to get them back to the correct files? I obviously did all of this without stopping to think and now my MacBook Pro is running very slowly.

jstanley said:

Is there a way to get them back to the correct files?

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I'm not sure what you mean by "correct files". Were they originally ".jpeg" files & now they're not?

jstanley said:

I obviously did all of this without stopping to think and now my MacBook Pro is running very slowly.

Click to expand...

"Dumping" 10,000 files onto the desktop will tend to cause this!

- Nick

jstanley said:

I thought I was clearing a flash drive and dumped all my images (10,000 plus) in the trash. I retrieved the to the desk top. Is there a way to get them back to the correct files? I obviously did all of this without stopping to think and now my MacBook Pro is running very slowly.

Click to expand...

Need a little more info.
Where were the photos before?
Were you using iPhoto, Aperture or some other photo management software?
If so, were you letting the above manage the files or did you keep them in folders?

Bottomline (Not knowing exactly what you did): if you had them in iPhoto and opening the iPhoto Library still shows all of your pictures then you can safely delete the files from your desktop as they are duplicates.

Some were jpeg in iPhoto and those appear to be back as well as still on my desktop. Others were all the images that come with just about everything we receive. Those I could probably do without - but trying to figure out 10,000 plus images to delete is a bit overwhelming. I would rather just put them back where they were. I know I didn't think everything through before I really messed up, but I'm an old geezer whose granddaughter needed a flash drive to take homework to school - and of course I wanted to show her I 'knew' my technology!

Unfortunately there isn't an undo command at this point.

If you have a backup with Time Machine (and you really should) you could revert to the period just before you deleted the files.
If you don't you are just going to have to do it the old fashioned manual way and chalk the effort up to lessons learned (unless you want to backup your data and start over with a reinstall of the OS and programs).

But, I may be overstating the problem here, and we have some real smart guys on this forum. Maybe someone else has an easier way to do it.

Thanks, and I do have Time Machine. That sounds like a good solution. I only use it about once a month so I'll miss a few things. I'll also wait a day or so to see what other ans. I might get. Thanks again and the next time, I'll not be so quick to display my ignorance of technology. It shows with me trying!