mac file icons disappeared

[mrosenb]

I was using Photo Mechanic to delete a bunch of images. I thought I made a mistake and deleted my entire contact sheet. Turns out photos are still there but just not showing in icon view on my mac. Files were visible in icon view before using photo mechanic.

[mrosenb]

I tried quitting the thumnails agent in the activity monitor and restarting finder. Didn't work.

[ahoward]

In the icon view, can you scroll around?

Your Finder window is likely unsorted, so when you delete files in Photo Mechanic, the files in your Finder just stay where they are, they don't get moved up or take over the position of other images. All over Finder view modes do not allow for not having a sort method, and do not allow for empty spaces like the icon view does.

[mrosenb]

Yes that's it! Thank you.

[FVlcek]

In case you actually had deleted them, just a bit of advice – Apple's Time Machine (if enabled) keeps hourly snapshots (backups) of your filesystem even if your external TM disc isn't connected, for one full day. At least if you have enough free space on the main drive, that is.

It literally saved my arse once (not with photos – I backup those immediately on ingest to a separate drive – but some text files I really needed to go back to).