Can't recover trashed 358-page InDesign CC 2017 document

[mortyfromqueens]

Hello Community,

     I'm a fuss-pot for details, but somehow I trashed my 358-page InDesign CC 2017 document,

and no way could find out how to recover it.

It looks like, judging by what I found about recovery, my docs are not automatically backed-up.

I have my own backup on an external disk, but it's 8 days old and missing data since then.

     Please help. Thank you very much,

          Morty

[Steve Werner]

Markzware has a file recovery service you can pay for:

DTP File Recovery Service | Markzware

[Sandee Cohen]

Is your file corrupted? That is do you have it but it won't open? In that case Markzware's product is the place to go.

But if you put your file in the trash (or recycle bin) and then emptied them, you need a hard disk recovery service. And even then you may not get much. Especially if you've been writing on and off of the hard disk.

Are you sure you trashed it? Or maybe it's sitting in the trash but it wasn't emptied.

[mortyfromqueens]

Not corrupted, Sandee. Was green-no-errors.

It opens, but it's all gone.

By trashed, I mean I must have accidentally highlighted it (I had a Word doc and a TextEdit doc open same time),

then tapped it accidentally and didn't notice it became blank because I was attending to the other docs, which had

things in it that related to my InDesign doc.

     Not in the trash.

     Thanks,

      Morty

[Barb Binder]

Hi Morty: I am so sorry to hear this. I know how hard you have been working on this file.

[Dov Isaacs]

What many of us who have used technology over the years have learned is the maxim “save and backup early and often” even if it appears somewhat inconvenient. This applies not only to InDesign documents, but virtually any type of digital asset that is being worked on for a period of time with numerous edit cycles including spreadsheets, photos, presentations, etc.

In my own work using InDesign, it is not unusual for me to work for an hour, save (using “save as”) the document, close the document, copy the document to a backup location with a “generation name,” and then reopen the document in InDesign. (If you are particularly concerned about document integrity, you might also do a IDML save as well!) I do the same thing when doing complex image edits and spreadsheet edits. It may seem like paranoia, but it has saved my tuchas many times.       

          - Dov

[Derek Cross]

Absolutely Dov - everyone should copy your wise words and print them out stick them where they can see them constantly. Mind you I don't know what a "tuchas" is!

[Dov Isaacs]

Where the sun doesn't shine?

[mortyfromqueens]

Please quote where I "complained," Staff Dov. 

"Duh"? Yeah, full backups of everything—excuse me, but I goofed this time, okay?

I'm 81 and published a small press from 1975 to 2000, from mimeograph to camera-ready copy

to PDFs to the printer. A one-person operation.

My The Spirit That Moves Us Press even was the first to publish in English in the U.S.A., a book

of poetry by Jaroslav Seifert—The Casting Of Bells—who won the Nobel Prize in Literature the following year, 1984.

By the way, as far as tuchas is concerned, it is shine upon in nudist colonies, to mention one place.

     Morty

[Derek Cross]

No need to be rude Morty, people on here are trying to help you (and others).

[mortyfromqueens]

Respect your elders, Derek. I don't need to be told what I have a need to do.

[BobLevine]

Here's another way to avoid this type of headache:

Why I Always Work in a Dropbox Folder and Why You Should, Too!

[mortyfromqueens]

Bob—DropBox is something I've only had to use for this book, working with people elsewhere. I'll never use it again

     and so it's not worth it for me to upgrade from the free version for this 358-page book.

By the way, Bob and all, I'd like to let you know my loss of that current copy of the book turned-out to not be

a total loss. I had backup from two days previously, and notes from myself an co-editors to bring that version

to a satisfactory state.

     Thank you,

       Morty

[BobLevine]

As long as you had something backed up to a recent version that’s good. But I think the $99/year for Dropbox is well worth the insurance.

[TᴀW]

Dropbox is great, or, if you have a current subscription to Office 365 it comes with a full 1TB on OneDrive -- which is effectively the same as Dropbox.

Ariel

[BobLevine]

Big fan of OneDrive and Office 365. It’s a huge bargain but I’m not sure they give you the same version control for non-office applications.

[wrensauer]

Hi everyone,

Gentle reminder that the forums are a space to share solutions and help others with issues they encounter. Please be respectful to one another - everyone has varying levels of knowledge and the forums are a space to learn from each other.

Glad you were able to get a working version of your book together, Morty!

Best,

Wren

[Bo_LeBeau]

Respect works both ways.

Since you mentioned that you were able to recover/reconstruct the document, one would hope you would be in a more mellow state of mind.

Now, almost a month later, you post a nasty slur (thankfully it has been deleted) about another forum member.

Why?

--------------------------------------------------------------

"It's about time the piano realize it has not written the concerto!"    All About Eve - 1950

[Dov Isaacs]

PS:     It is absolutely amazing how many posts we get about users having some serious hardware failure and complaining to Adobe that their documents, fonts, and other digital assets are lost and that Adobe can't help get them back. Duh — how about regular full backups of your systems?

[rob day]

but somehow I trashed my 358-page InDesign CC 2017 document,

and no way could find out how to recover it.

There are a number of file recovery apps out there some are free. I've used Stellar Recovery and it works great. It's not free, but the demo will tell you if the trashed file is still there.

Data Recovery Software Free Download – Stellar Data Recovery

The sooner you run a file recovery utility after the loss the better the chance of recovering trashed files.