(Archived) Lost attachments

[macgabe 0]

Unfortunately I didn't quite understand how Evernote worked.

 

I dragged a lot of media into Evernote including spreadsheets and then deleted the original spreadsheet.

 

At first a spreadsheet would remain visible in Evernote even after I had dragged the original into the trash, but now I see they have all disappeared.

 

Much as I like Evernote, I find this feature misleading. It has meant that I have lost quite a few important documents and am wary about dragging anything into Evernote now - it's difficult to know if the data/image/spreadsheet has been copied or is just linked to an original somewhere on the hard disk.

 

Maybe some kind of warning or "tooltip" is in order?

[gazumped 11,664]

Hi and welcome to the forums.  Sorry to hear your files have disappeared,  but that would not have been an Evernote issue.  Files that are dragged and dropped onto a note become part of that note and are saved into the local database.  Deleting the original would not affect the copy within Evernote.  Notes 'linked' to a file on the hard drive (or to anything else for that matter) show blue or green underlined hyperlinks,  not the file icon or content.  If the content of your notes has vanished,  that's another problem,  and suggests you may have overwritten the note containing the copy of the file with another 'blank' version,  perhaps by using a mobile or web client to edit the note and then saving it remotely.

 

Try going to your account via a browser and Evernote.com.  Sign in and see whether your files still exist online.  If not,  check the Trash in your desktop Evernote account to see if the older version of any notes has been overwritten or deleted.  If the files don't exist in either location I'm afraid they're gone,  and I would agree - keep a separate copy of any files you upload to Evernote until you determine how these items were deleted - or at least until you're happy that the situation won't repeat itself.  I suggest you also search the forums here for information about how to backup your database.  Even if you're happy that this loss won't recur,  it makes sense to keep regular backups offline so that you're not totally dependent on your internet connection for access to information.

 

Edit:  I also suggest you make sure that all the devices you may have used to access your account have synced all their latest updates with the server!

[macgabe 0]

Hmm thanks for that. It's true that most docs are in fact still there in evernote - I assumed (wrongly I see now from your explanation) that it was just because I hadn't deleted the originals. Still can't see why these spreadsheets might have disappeared but I'll investigate further.

 

Unfortunately this has all coincided with a migration to a new imac. I did have 2 backups of my old imac - Time Machine and a clone - but what with the inevitable hard disk musical chairs that goes on, I finally decided to overwrite my backups with the new disk (i might still have a copy lying around somewhere). Will also check with the Evernote online backup system.