# My MAC just renamed a file by itself resulting in the 'replacement' of a file!



## jenndom (Jan 28, 2011)

Hi

I have a very weird problem that I have never come across or heard of.

I have been working on an important, time sensitive excel file on my MAC.


My Mac then named this file after another file that also existed. In detail:
(please note I call the files in question ABC and 123 in this forum just for ease of explanation).

I am working on a blank word doc file and upon saving it, I saved it as ABC.doc.

When I pressed the 'save' button, the MAC just went ahead and saved it as '123.xls!
I never asked it to save the file under this 123.xls name, it just seemingly randomly changed the file that I had named ABC.doc to 123.xls!

There _is_ a 123.xls file (which is obviously an excel file) in a different folder that I am also working on, but it is entirely different to the ABC doc (which is a word document).

Then, noticing that in this folder that i was working in there is suddenly a 123.xls file, I went ahead and without thinking I moved 123.xls to the folder 'it should belong' thinking that I must have previously, perhaps accidentally moved this '123.xls' file into the folder I was currently working in.

So I just dragged it to the folder where I knew my 123.xls file normally belongs.

Well, the ORIGINAL 123.xls file was of course in that folder. So now I am dragging the 'new' 123 file into that folder. As I do so, it asks if I want to replace and without hesitation I clicked 'yes'.

Then it dawned on me what actually happened.
For lack of other words, my MAC named my ABC.doc file '123.xls' and thus 'mislead' me. As I did not notice that it had just randomly changed the name of the file ABC.doc to '123.xls', I only saw that there was a file name '123.xls' in this folder, when this '123.xls' file should actually have been located in the other folder. 

That is why I dragged this '123.xls' file to the folder where the '123.xls' file normally resides, not knowing that this was NOT the REAL '123.xls' file, but that it was in fact my ABC.doc, 'disguised' under the name 123.xls.

Since I accidentally replaced the REAL 123.xls file due to all this, I am in deep trouble now and am desperate to retrieve it.

Yes, I am to blame for not backing the file up, despite working on it for two weeks. But that does not really help me now and I am hoping that by some miracle somebody out there knows a trick to retrieve a 'replaced' document.

Unfortunately, my MAC does not have Time Machine and I suppose many of the file retrieve software programs out there may not work on such an old MAC, so I am just looking for anyone who may be able to explain why on earth this even happened...and perhaps help me retrieve the file :-(

Thank you all

Jenn


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## sinclair_tm (Mar 11, 2005)

Sorry, but there is no way to retrieve the file, once you replaced it, it's gone. As for the wrong name, it would of only gotten that name if you had clicked on the file in the file list. When you opened the save window, did it start in your folder that the 123.xls file was in, then you navigated to the folder you wanted ABC.doc in?


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## jenndom (Jan 28, 2011)

Hi, thanks so much for your response! Yes, while I did think that I may have accidentally clicked on the file name because when I saved ABC.doc, I started from the folder where 123.xls was in. However, it wasn't until I navigated to the folder I wanted to save ABC.doc that I typed the file name. I don't remember clicking anything else after that except for save. Then I was surprised later to 123.xls in that folder, not noticing that ABC.doc wasn't there (the folder had a few other files). Thing is, when I repeated the procedure, my Save As feature did the same thing... as I was saving a doc, after I typed in a file name, it gave it a different name without me doing anything at all. Luckily I hadn't clicked the save button yet. My MAC is old... maybe it's getting confused. 

Anyway, thanks for the response. I understand that I may not be able to retrieve my original 123.xls at all... I was just hoping for someone who may know a little magic to get me out of my present dilemma...


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