Can't Recover a Spreadsheet

[JamiePW]

Good Morning,

I have a crucial spreadsheet (that I haven't backed up!!) that failed to open when I clicked on recent documents, it was top of the list. After trying several times I restarted my macbook Pro only for the recent documents to no longer show this file. The file was saved to desktop but now I can not locate it at all.

When restarting Open Office I was given the opportunity to recover this file but it fails. I also found that a whole load of files had been dumped on to my desktop but the file im looking for is still missing. I have called Apple support but hey believe it must be an application issue.

Screen shot of said file and message:

https://ibb.co/jnyeVk

Then after clicking next i get nothing.

Please help...

[RoryOF]

Your best hope of recovery is to try and undelete any temporary file OpenOffice was using. As soon as possible do the following:

Download PhotoRec and let it do an indepth recovery of deleted files on your computer. You may get a file containing some or all of your data (or not). Do this as a first priority; other use of the computer may overwrite any existing but deleted files and prevent their recovery. There is no guarantee that you will recover anything useful.

Do this soonest - use of the computer runs risk of overwriting the deleted file(s).

[JamiePW]

Thankyou Rory, have downloaded and running as we speak. Fingers very tightly crossed! Will let you know how I get on.

[JamiePW]

No good, i've had a good look through the recovered files and cant find it. I saved this file every day before the end of the day. I find it hard to comprehend that all trace of this could just disappear?

[MrProgrammer]

Hi, and welcome to the forum.

Screen shot of said file and message: - https://ibb.co/jnyeVk

That just shows that recovery of the latest changes wasn't successful, not that the file couldn't be found.

The file was saved to desktop but now I can not locate it at all.

Files on Macs do not simply disappear. Use Finder → Go → Desktop (not OpenOffice → File → Recent Documents) to look at the files on your desktop. If you find the file, double click it in Finder to open it. Or use OpenOffice → File → Open, then navigate to the desktop. Perhaps you deleted it by accident (by dragging it into the Trash). I'm sure you don't believe you did that, but this does happen to people sometimes. Look in the Trash, right side of the Dock. If it's there, drag it back to the desktop. Are you sure it was on the desktop? Maybe it got moved somewhere else (by dragging it to another folder). Use Spotlight to find files by name, or even just a part of the name, or by some words inside the file. Or in Finder use File → Find. If you're not familiar with basic Mac features like Trash, Spotlight, and searching for files, go to your local library and borrow any recent book (say, last 5 years) about Macs. It will probably save you a lot of time and frustration, like being unable to find a file. I'd suggest one of the smaller books; the others will probably tell you about lots of features you aren't interested in.

that I haven't backed up!!

If the file wasn't important enough to create a backup, then it wasn't important, right? It's easy to enable automatic backups. The Mac book will tell you about that feature (Time Machine). So will Finder → Help → Search → Backup. Additionally enable OpenOffice → Preferences → Load/Save → General → Always create backup copy. Read section 6. Saving your data and making backups in Ten concepts that every Calc user should know.

If this solved your problem please go to your first post use the Edit button and add [Solved] to the start of the title. You can select the green checkmark icon at the same time.

[JamiePW]

Good Morning MrP.

Thank you for your reply. It's actually my wifes Mac and the file is for her business, it contains every deal she has taken this year along with specifications for each order, customer phone numbers addresses value of order etc.

She had thought a backup was running and also thought it was being backed up on to iCloud, neither seems to be he case. icloud seems to be saving everything bar documents. I think when we installed the latest version of Open Office we forgot to re-setup the backup because it definitely had been set up previously. Stupid And careless I know but hindsight is a wonderful thing.

Believe me the file is not there, I have used finder and he search function hundreds of times in every possible location, and in every derivative of typo etc possible. I have looked at any possible file that would be a similar size and double checked the extension name hasn't changed, I have checked trash and have also run a 3rd party recovery tool which found the exact same number of .ods files that I could find manually on the Machine. I myself cannot believe this file has disappeared without trace but at this point in time that is exactly what has happened.

When this first happed and I restarted the machine for the first time hundreds of random documents were dumped on to the desktop. I can only assume some form of malware has found it way in to our macbook. I'm still expecting to see a randsome email offering the file back in exchange for money.

[Hagar Delest]

Have you tried this topic: See: [Tutorial] The Dreaded Pound Signs: file reduced to ####?
There are few hints that could apply to your case.
The ODF is made of a zip file with a bunch of files and folders insides. Make a copy of an ODF file and change its extension to zip, then open it to see how it looks. When opens a file, it unzips all its content in a folder in your temporary folder. Make sure that among the recovered file there is no .tmp file that could look like such a temporary file. If so, try to rename it to .ods.

Good luck.