So I just managed to delete my entire Documents folder :/

mosfet

mosfet

mosfet

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My old iBook is running quite slowly, I Cmd-Space on an old folder in Documents folder in Finder, it doesn't go. Did it again, still nothing. 3rd time I do Cmd-Backspace the folder disappears.

I go to the Trash, there's loads of stuff in there so I Ctrl-Click it, and the split second before I click Empty trash, the machine springs back in to life, executes the 2 extra keystrokes I made and deletes the 2 next folders in the Finder, one of which was Documents.

Presto, all my docs gone in a flash.

It's not a massive issue, I'm sure I've got backups of the important stuff, I am, however, absolutely gobsmacked that you can just do that in Mac OS. I'm pretty sure Windows would have a fit if you tried to delete My Documents - you'd think it's something that would require your UN/PW combination in Mac OS X, but apparently not.

Anyway, somewhat annoyed, thought I'd have rant.
 
It does suck but you have to admit it is a pretty unfortunate set of circumstances that led up to it.

Bet you're glad you have backups now? :D
 
It's one of those situations where I know I have backups of the folder available, but I can't remember what's been put in there since the last backup :( I'll only find out when I come to need it.

Is there a way of protecting folders, without hindering write access for daily use?
 
The documents folder is contained within your user folder which itself can't be deleted. While it would seem wise to password protect the documents folder, even then you could as easily have deleted its contents.

As with all the other default user directories (pictures, downloads and movies to name a few) each can be moved to trash, not deleted, and from there you can restore should you need to. In your case you seem unfortunately to have lost this protection. From what I remember, this standard configuration also exists within Windows and Ubuntu.
 
While I don't think i'll ever need to use it, i'm glad that I use Time Machine incase one of these situations ever come up :)
 
Don't worry, I managed to screw up using the Edit > Undo commands..

I copied and old set of documents to the desktop so I wouldn't mess around with the master copies. Spent 2hrs updating them, and accidently overwrite them over the originals, not the copies on the desktop.

Without realising I deleted the desktop copies :eek:

Tried to Edit > Undo the mess, and actually ended up with 3 of the 4 documents, but the 1 main document that had took the best part of 2hrs to complete had been lost because it was overwritten.

Queue me restoring from a backup on the server and spending ANOTHER 2 hrs updating the files :(

(This was in Windows XP - so it's possible on both platforms).
 
With great power comes great responsibility.

You own everything under you User Folder and thus you can delete it.

System files are a whole different game and that's where OS X (actually BSD, Linux et al) is better than Windows
 
Code: 
#!/bin/bash
BACKUP=/Volumes/Hard\ Drive
TOBACKUP="/Users/Jasper/svn /Users/Jasper/Sites /Users/Jasper/Freelance"
if [ -d "$BACKUP" ]; then
	for i in $TOBACKUP; do
		rsync -av --delete "$i" "$BACKUP"
	done
fi

set on a cron to run every hour, job done.
 
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