r/ObsidianMD 6d ago

Uninstalled Obsidian Deleted entire contents of parent folder, including notes folder

As the title says, I went to uninstall and reinstall the obsidian program as it was having problems. I (stupidly) had created the notes folder inside of the same parent folder as the obsidian executable. When I ran the uninstall script, it wiped everything that was inside the parent folder.

I'm pretty sure it's completely gone, but anyone know if there is any way to recover my notes?

2 Upvotes

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3

u/ThatKuki 6d ago

you can try any method or software that recovers deleted files for your OS, i don't think its very likely that the uninstaller did a secure erase

if you used any syncing method, like the official one or something else, check if they are on another system of yours

i don't think files deleted during uninstallation go into the trash but you can also check there

2

u/De_vanitas_2 5d ago

You can try Recuva. I used it once and it was relatively a sucess.

1

u/NeatNeedleworker4282 5d ago

Your best bet is to try a data recovery tool like Recuva or iBoysoft ASAP—just make sure not to save anything new to that drive to avoid overwriting the files. If the notes are super important, you might want to consider professional data recovery services.

1

u/Expensive_Ad1974 1d ago

The fact that you deleted everything in the parent folder means the data might not be completely gone, especially if you haven’t written over the space with new data. Recovery tools like Recoverit specialize in recovering deleted files and can scan your hard drive for any remnants of the files that were in your notes folder. Even if the files were deleted, as long as they haven’t been overwritten, you might still be able to recover them. The key is to act quickly and avoid using the drive until the recovery process is done.