CAN I RECOVER ITEMS I ACCIDENTLLY EMPTIED FROM MY BIN?

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CAN I RECOVER ITEMS I ACCIDENTLLY EMPTIED FROM MY BIN?

A few days ago I cleared my Recents list thinking it was simply just a list. Hadn't appreciated I would be deleting the actual documents. They were all moved to the bin.

No worries, I needed to do some sorting anyway so I began to save those items now in the bin back into the folders I wanted to keep them in. Unfortunately soon after beginning that process I clicked on the wrong option and cleared the bin completely!

I am very upset with myself as there are a lot of items I spent a long time compiling now apparently lost for ever.

Is the ANY way that I can recover the documents that I deleted from my bin about a week ago now?

Grateful for any suggestions.

MacBook Pro 15″

Posted on Sep 24, 2025 6:30 AM

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Answer 1

Sep 24, 2025 8:40 AM in response to Drinks@22

A great safety feature on the Mac is that deleted items remain in the "Recently Deleted" or in the trash bin for 30 days before they are removed permanently. This safety feature can be defeated by choosing to prematurely delete items from the "Recently Deleted" or trash bin. If you use iCloud Photos or iCloud Drive, then that "synchronizes" iCloud with the Mac, so what you see on the Mac is just what is also at iCloud. iCloud doesn't keep items in "Recently Deleted" or the trash bin any longer than the Mac does.

So bypassing the safety feature is permanent. I'm sorry, but the only second safety is your own backups you make to an external drive. Time Machine is a great Apple app to use to make automatic backups.

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