User account content disappeared

[Ooom]

Hello..

Is it possible for a Mac user account to completely lose all its content, accidentally?

I left home for a few days, came back to login to my user account where I was editing a short film in Final Cut. And everything was gone!! On login it went back to set-up as if I was logging in for the first time and back to a default screensaver.. All desktop files, all downloaded software, everything gone..
I checked the file folders for the user account and they are all empty too.

Are there known examples of this happening?

Or has someone not very nice, with access to the admin account (3 people), gone and deleted my work?

 

[Cory Cooper]

Hello and welcome.

-Which version of OS X/macOS?
-Do you have FileVault enabled?

Yes, if there are others that have admin access to the Mac, they could have done something with your account/data. You could check in > System Preferences... > Users & Groups to see if there may be more than one account with a similar name to yours.

C

 

[Ooom]

Hi thanks for your reply.

High Sierra 10.13.6 i think
I did a spotlight for File vault and all it brought up was a Wikipedia page so I don't think so..

Yes others have admin access.
It would be easy for anyone to delete my account or its contents.

My question is could it happen by computer error or failure, rather than by human design? That would be less upsetting than someone deleting it.

 

[Cory Cooper]

No worries.

Honestly, I haven't ever heard of a single user account losing all of it's data on a multiple user account Mac without some form of user intervention. Not that anyone that has access to your Mac deleted your files maliciously. In addition, other admins would have to either know or reset your password to gain access to your user, other than deleting it and recreating it totally. Even then, they would have had to know your password to re-add the account, or your password would not have worked at the login screen.

I have heard of FileVault, if enabled in  > System Preferences... > Security & Privacy > FileVault, becoming corrupted and preventing users from logging in. This could also cause loss of data, but it would affect all user accounts.

The symptom of all data being gone, and having to go through initial setup with that account, sounds more like multiple accounts with the same name on the Mac, or the Home folder having been renamed or moved.

Were you using any form of Time Machine or other backup of your Mac and its data? This is highly recommended for this exact type of scenario, as well as hardware failure and others.

C

 

[Josef Law]

Go to the System Preferences, then Users & Groups. How many account/s you have there?