Folder missing ?

Yesterday the items in my dock played up by jumping about as I was trying to focus the cursor on an item, ie if I aimed at iPhoto, the shortcut would juggle about away from the cursor and I could not click on it. This problem cleared after a few seconds but my folder of price lists, stored next to the trash icon disappeared? I clicked on it as it had changed it's image to something with PNG in the picture then a large black question mark appeared and then it was gone! I cannot find any reference to the various price lists in finder at all. ? Any ideas? Thanks

Have you looked in the trash?

Was this a folder that was just an alias of a folder on your computer? If so then find it again and drag it to the dock..

Trash is totally empty having cleared it a few weeks ago.
An alias? Where would I look for it? Checked in finder where I put price lists as they arrive into a folder marked as such. Now that folder is missing. If I search for lists under the suppliers names , nothing comes at all?
Thanks,
Duncan

Alias is the Mac name for what Windows calls Shortcut. Folders in the Dock are actually called Stacks, although functionally they behave like aliases of Applications. If you accidently drag an Alias or Stack off of the Dock, and release the mouse button, it is removed. To get it back, open the folder where the original is and drag it to the Dock.

I'm not sure what you searched for. Did you enter a file name?

That appears to be the problem. In the past, when I received a new price list, I clicked on Finder and there was a blue 'folder' marked 'prices' between 'desktop' and 'downloads', now it's missing. I've searched for prices, price lists, individual companies names, downloads and not a single mention of any of the 10 odd prices lists are anywhere ?

Have you done a spotlight search, also recheck your named files in finder.

Still nothing ! Is the letters PNG anything, or the black question mark?
Can some one walk me thru getting the file back from my time machine back up. I did a complete backup to a transcend a month ago. I've plugged it in , clicked on the icon and find loads of items but no price list folder. In fact I can't find emails either ?
Thanks for your patience….

My booklet says 'data rescue 11' , would an idiot be able to use this?

Hi,

I don't think Time Machine will help help, as I think you may have created a smart folder and once deleted it is gone.
I know in your first post you said the folder was blue and smart folders are usually purple. Also with time machine you need to know the location of the file/folder you want to reinstate.
I would have a look in the hidden library folder, hold down the (alt) key while hovering the mouse curser over the GO option in your task bar this will add (temporarily) the library folder. Once there check both the mail folder and mail downloads folder.
There are many more here that know more about the Mac file system than me so just be patent for help. I have never used data rescue 11 so cant comment on that.

DUNKYD said:

In the past, when I received a new price list, I clicked on Finder and there was a blue 'folder' marked 'prices' between 'desktop' and 'downloads', now it's missing. I've searched for prices, price lists, individual companies names, downloads and not a single mention of any of the 10 odd prices lists are anywhere ?

Click to expand...

It seems that you are searching for the missing folder by name. Do you know the name of a particular file that would have been in that folder? Even part of a file name would do. If you know one, try that in Spotlight. Once you locate a file, if you're lucky the rest of them will be in the same folder. As Old Scribe suggested, you might have been accessing them from a "smart folder". If so, you need to discover the "regular" folder that they are in.

I give up !
Decided to go the looong route and ask for new lists from all my suppliers.
I have 3 already and have put them into a 'stack' next to the trash basket. When I click on the stack it opens in a fan. Fine , that works perfectly. On the top of the fan is "open in Finder' , what's that ?
The blue folder 'prices' is no longer in finder? Does that matter ?
I've stored the incoming emails in a new folder'on my mac' in mail just to be safe.How else can I secure these lists from going missing again?
Thanks

Hi,

On the top of the fan is "open in Finder' , what's that ?

Click to expand...

All that is displayed in the fan are folders or files in you documents folder, when you click open in finder it will open your documents folder.

I've stored the incoming emails in a new folder'on my mac' in mail just to be safe.How else can I secure these lists from going missing again?

Click to expand...

As long as you do regular backups (TM) and know the location of this mail folder you have created then all should be fine. I would suggest you backup now, when done open TM and go to this latest backup then you can check the files location for yourself.

DUNKYD said:

I give up !
Decided to go the looong route and ask for new lists from all my suppliers.
I have 3 already and have put them into a 'stack' next to the trash basket. When I click on the stack it opens in a fan. Fine , that works perfectly. On the top of the fan is "open in Finder' , what's that ?
The blue folder 'prices' is no longer in finder? Does that matter ?
I've stored the incoming emails in a new folder'on my mac' in mail just to be safe.How else can I secure these lists from going missing again?
Thanks

Click to expand...

Ok, that's one approach, and it will work ok, but...
You must understand that a Stack is not a Folder. A Stack is a "shortcut" to a Folder. I'm not sure if you can save a file directly to a Stack and not have it "live" in a real Folder, but that would not be the way it would have been intended to be used given the history of the Mac OS development.

To create a Stack, I'm pretty sure you have to start with a Folder anyway. I don't want to test that, because I'm not at home on my Mac. So if you put files in the Stack, they should also show up in the real Folder that the Stack is "pointing" to. Thus, I'm not sure how you "lost" them before.

My recommendation is to create a "Prices" Folder in Documents and put the e-mail file attachments in that Folder. Then drag the icon of Prices to the Dock, creating a Stack. That is the way I believe it's intended to be used. Then, when you open a file from the Prices Stack and modify it, you are saving it in the Prices Folder. The Prices Folder, being in Documents, will be backed up when you use Time Machine.

Does all that make sense?

Thanks yes. I've followed all that and remade my folder from scratch and backed up in Mail and ™ which is my next project to find out how to re load things from the external HD back to my Mac. That's for another day.
Thanks all !

Hi DUNKYD,

Good to hear all is ok now, my only other thought re lost folders/files was that you were useing spring loaded folders for these emails.

Ah ! So they jumped right out of my Mac ! I'll scratch around on the floor of my office.

Hi,

That sounds much to energetic for me, its easier to go into finder preferences.

On a serious note I find using spring folders extremely useful and quick when dragging and dropping files /photos.