Windows 10: A file just disappeared from the desktop

Hello everyone!

I have a question/problem and I want to know if this ever happened to any of you.

I was working on an Excel file, that was saved on my desktop, I saved it, closed it and when I clicked on it (the icon file on my desktop) it simply disappeared.

I thought immediately that I deleted it or put it on another folder but I went to recycle bin and nothing was there, I searched all the folders on my desktop (and also on the computer drive) for that file and nothing.

It simply vanished. I tried using a recovery software but that software came up with nothing.

I know that his may seem very strange but this happened to me yesterday and all of the work that I was doing has to be done again *Sad.

I'm using windows 10 for quite some time now and I notice that it still has some issues to resolve but I never known any OS that made files disappear.

Did this ever happened to any of you?

Thank you.

:)

 

Photos just disappeared from a Win10 desktop..

Hello,

I started my computer today to check on some photos... to my surprise all photos disappeared.. i didnt do anything.. didnt delete any.. just that i couldnot find anymore photos saved from the past.. the folders containing previously saved photos remained..but
they are all empty now.. iclciked to show hidden files.. checked recycle bin.. there's nothing.. every saved photo is gone.. HELP PLS.

Thanks\bsrgds,

Dennis

 

Photos just disappeared from a Win10 desktop..

Hello, Try resetting Photos app, see if that helps: [FAQ] How To Reset Apps In Windows 10? Hope this helps, Good luck!

 

Yesterday Microsoft Word, and the document I was working on disappeared. It was Windows Defender protecting me from some trojan it believed I had caught. When I found the quarantined program and restored it, not wanting to reinstall MSOffice, it worked perfectly for the rest of the day without Defender complaining, so I guess it was a false alarm. Later today I shall install a different Antivirus and check the system - in fact, I shall do it now.

 

Open Excel and look at Recent File History. Most likely Onedrive uploaded it to your Cloud storage. It does help to know what version of Office you are using. Especially since 2016 & Office 365 are both cloud based. Office 2013 can also be made to keep files in the One Drive account, unless you change its behavior.

 

Hi. Thank you all for your replies.

I use Office 2010, I don't store nothing on the cloud (and at the moment I don't have any files there) and my Windows Defender isn't detecting anything wrong.

 

open excel, got to save,as if you were going to save a file ,what directory/ folder did it open to save the file in,maybe it got changed from the desktop location .. I also want to add the desktop is for shortcuts not folders for storing files ,, the desktop is only a file itself [unless something has changed since I first learned all about computers ] and is capable of becoming corrupt ,"all file lost "

 

I use Office 2010 too. In Search, type .xls A few results will show up, click 'See more results' at bottom of list and all your Excel books should show up in an explorer window. I just tried it and every Excel file showed up. On another note, next time save to a folder location vs desktop.

 

Open Excel > click the Office button > right column, under Recent documents, do you see your missing excel file ?

 

My answer for this would be that the desktop is protected from unauthorized write operations similar to how Program Files, ProgramFiles(x86) and the Windows directory's are secured under Windows 10. If that is the case for the desktop folder then it would explain why you thought you saved it there. As long as Office was running the file was in the cache memory for Office, but since Office didn't have permission's from SYSTEM group the file was erased when Office was closed.

You can test this out by trying to save a document to the desktop again to see if the file remains after the Office program is exited. If the file does indeed disappear again, then you should save the file to the "Documents" folder where documents are meant to be saved/stored. Why people use the desktop as a storage bin is beyond me. Convenience I suppose, but if you really, really gotta have your documents on the desktop it would be a good idea to take ownership from SYSTEM or Administrators Groups before attempting to save volatile files to the desktop again.

In a perfect world everyone's desktop would have this many items on it, just sayin' *Smile Hope you figure it out!

 

Ditto here. The only thing on mine is a Recycle Bin to drag things to. *Smile
I never understood why people keep files on the desktop. There are so many threads complaining of file loss or not transferring on Upgrade. For computers that I set up for others who do not like to navigate, I put shortcuts to This PC folders so they can drag files to the appropriate folders but encourage them to do this daily.

 

in my 15 or 20 years or so of dealing with other peoples computer ,they save to the desktop ,because they didn't know how to use File[system]Explorer ,so it was easier to find files that they to save to the desktop ,that at least what most of them told me,*really

 

I learnt years ago (Windows 7) that you never put anything but a shortcut onto the desktop, and then you hid the desktop icons so you could put a nice background there, with the desktop toolbar in the task bar for easy, one-click-hold-move, then one-release-click access to absolutely anything on your system. My Start Menu became an irrelevance long before Windows 8 arrived.

 

Windows 10 forces Office to save all files in One Drive. You have to go into the Office Settings and change that. The Recent Items in Office, will tell you where it was saved to.

 

"Windows 10 forces Office to save all files in One Drive."
Not in 2010 Professional which I have used in both 8.1 and 10. It has the legacy file explorer window open when you hit Save or Save as and you choose the Save location. I know 2016 operates this way and gives you a massive amount of OneDrive cloud space but 2010 does not.