If you have set up TimeMachine to backup automatically you should be able to
recover your file from there, TM should have copies up to about an hour before
you lost the file, or perhaps the day or week before if you have left it a
while to recover it. Ref. Mac Help to find out how to recover documents. Note
that you do NOT need to do a full restore from your TM backup unless you have
lost all of the data on your computer, in fact you will NOT want to restore to
an earlier status, I think you would probably lose your later work if you did
that, a full restore is only to recover from total disaster, you can recover
individual files from your TM backup by entering TM and scrolling back to the
last date on which your lost file was saved and (if I remember correctly from
the last time I did this) opening the window and copying or dragging the file
to the desktop (but please don’t rely on my memory, check the Help files).
If you are a student you absolutely cannot afford to take the risk of not
properly backing up your work, or even your notes, so if you don’t have a Time
Machine backup, you should set one up in case of future loss of data, it
provides an automatic ongoing backup, provided you have set it up to do so, and
if you are using TM and you inadvertently delete a file you can immediately
recover it from TM and lose no more than an hour’s work. I haven’t needed to do
that for several months, but you only need to do it once to realise the value
of TM. If you are using a large enough HD or SSD for your Time Machine backups
they can go back years, my current one goes back to July 2021 and it still has
enough space available for at least another year or two. I am currently using a
small (75 x 55 x 8 mm) 1TB USB SSD that I take with me whenever I go out for
any length of time, in case of mishap to the house and computer while I am
away, the insurance should pay for a replacement computer but it can’t replace
lost data. Ref. Mac Help to find out how to set up TM.
I also do manual backups to an external HD every so often and keep that backup
HD in a small fireproof safe (it is not practical for me to keep it off site).
The extra manual backup provides an emergency backup in case something goes
wrong with both your computer and the Time machine drive, or they get stolen or
burnt in a fire or whatever. I have only one manual backup HD, but I keep the
two or three most recent manual backups on it, deleting the oldest when I need
space for a new one. If I was still studying I would probably do a manual
backup once a week or perhaps even more frequently, v/s only ‘as required' now,
depending on the importance of work done since the last manual backup. If my
work was crucial enough I would alternate two backup drives to avoid the risk
of losing all backups if the only backup drive fails, but currently my two
backups are the TM drive and the manual one.
In a small business you should backup all essential data daily, rotating two
HDs or SSDs, never overwrite your last backup, only the second-last. Ideally
the most recent daily backup drives should be stored off site, or at least in a
fireproof safe. You should also have a weekly backup, stored off site, e.g. in
a Bank safety deposit box, also rotating two drives. A small business can go
broke after a fire, or even a theft, because of lost customer account data,
i.e. unpaid accounts, but the weekly off-site backup ensures that you won't
lose more than a few days records and should be able to survive a minor
disaster. These are minimums, by the way, some businesses might require a
stronger backup regime.
I am surprised to be writing about backups now, actually, but this is the
second query I have seen recently that seems to be suggesting the user has not
been backing up properly, so I hope this overview reminds users how important
backing up is. MacUsers have no excuse for not at least backing up with TM, I
didn’t trust it when it was first released, I was used to doing manual backups
and wasn’t sure I could trust an automated backup system, but TM works well,
excellently in fact, it is much better than the automatic backup system in
Linux, in which I could not work out how to restore an individual file, and it
is very much better than the automatic backup system in Windows, which is
non-existent according to my daughter, a Windows user for several years, though
I admit I found that difficult to believe in this day and age, so maybe the
Windows auto-backup system is just more difficult to find and use than Time
Machine on the Mac. (If I was a Windows user and Windows really doesn’t have an
equivalent of Time Machine I would be looking for an app from a 3rd party
developer.)
Every Mac user should be using Time Machine, even if you have no other backups,
but I would want at least two backups, either two TM backups (TM can alternate
backups between two backup drives) or TM plus a manual backup as I am doing a
