I recently migrated from an older Mac to a newer one.

My old mac had versions of excel and word saved on it (not this new Microsoft 365/onedrive trash). The files I used regularly were saved to my desktop.

I migrated everything from my old mac to the new one. The files I had saved on my old desktop were now saved on my new desktop. I could see the icons on my desktop.

I opened one of the files today (it happened to be an excel file), and I could edit it but I could not save it. I purchased Microsoft 365 last fall for my son, so I decided to install that, thinking that was why I couldn't open the file.

After installing Microsoft 365, all of the desktop files on my Mac disappeared. My desktop is now blank. I was able to find some of the pdf files I had saved and return them to my desktop, but I can't find all of them (some are just gone).

None of my word and excel files are in my onedrive or my iCloud. When I open excel, the files I want show up as "recent", but when I try to open them, I get an error message that the workbook is either deleted or not currently accessible.

The file path in excel says the files are in Macintosh HD >> users >> my name >> desktop. But when I try to access this through Finder, the files aren't there.

I can search my computer and find all of my excel and word files, but, with the exception of a couple of word docs (that I don't need), all of the files names now have a ~ in front of them and the word "ineligible" below the file.

Can anyone please help? There is one excel file in particular I really want to recover. I've googled searched, and the "disappearing desktop" and issues between macs, one drive, and iCloud are known, but I can't find any information on how to recover my files and resolve this problem.

OneDrive works oddly. It keeps references to the files locally, and downloads it on demand. It sounds like locally it still has the references, this is why you can see them when looking to open it through Excel, but it doesn't actually have the files.

If they're not in OneDrive, check the deleted items or recyle bin or whatever it is on OneDrive. I would check trash/recycle on iCloud to see if they might be found there.

Sorry for this situation, it sucks. OneDrive is a steaming pile of garbage and has been causing problems, including losing files, for years.

All of my trash bins are empty. It's like my desktop files never existed. I was able to recover some PDFs, but all the word and excel docs are gone.

I spent a good hour and a half on the phone with Apple support. They were awesome, but they couldn't find my files. What I'm seeing in the excel and word apps are "temporary" files, which is why they won't open. The actual files that I had saved on my desktop are nowhere to be found. It's only those temporary files that even prove they ever existed.

I've lost the last 5 years of all my financial info. It makes me sick. I honestly thought I had a back up on my external hard drive, but I can't find it.

And, I had already wiped my old laptop clean when I tried to install 365 (because my new laptop matched my old laptop exactly, and files were opening, so I thought I was good to go). So, I can't get the files back from that, either.

The most confusing thing is, where the heck did my desktop files go? Microsoft 365 swears they don't delete anything. The only think Apple support can guess is that when I installed 365, there was some issue between iCloud and OneDrive which caused my files to not be uploaded to either place.

This is so frustrating because I had no choice on how 365 would be installed. If I wanted to be able to use my excel files and save changes, I had to do the install. But it basically caused me to lose everything.

I seriously hope you locate your files, and I hate to say, I've been there -- both personally and professionally. The latter wasn't AS big a deal when it happened because when the hard drive crashed, everything critical was somewhere in hard copy. However, I lost over a decade of forms that I had created. As far as personally goes, I've also lost critical files, including law review submissions that I had planned to rewrite some day and either submit or resubmit. Hundreds, if not thousands, of hours of work.

I now keep multiple physical and cloud backups. I have 2 cloud backup services, a backup server on the premises, and do hard drive backups routinely -- not as much as I did and should do. I keep critical hard drives in a bank storage box. At any given time, I should have at least 4 backups of any file I didn't create within the last 72 hours, and I have at least one or two backups of those files created within the last 3 days. Ironically, I haven't had a server crash since I implemented this system.

Everyone should have at least TWO off-site backups that are not part of the original computer file (i.e. the original on the client hard drive -- or local server, and either 2 clouds or 1 cloud and a physical HDD kept elsewhere).

Oh, and never migrate anything. Keep everything on the old machine working as is, and manually add stuff to the new machine. Sorry you had to learn the hard way, and even sorrier I don't have a solution. (I know YOU didn't need or want a lecture, but hopefully going forward, this will help you and others).

I have definitely learned my lesson. Honestly, I thought I had a newer backup of this file (because my old Mac had crashed before). I honestly feel like this 365 download did more than just delete these files because it's like I have a totally different computer. Or at least one where everything from the last couple of years is gone.

I downloaded disk drill, and I have been able to find a newer version of the file on my SSD drive. It's still missing 2 years of data, but the only other version I have is missing 5 years. But there is nothing more recent than 2023 in my disk drill results, and that just seems weird. It's like OneDrive tried to sync with some really old iCloud back up.

It's also really weird what files were left after the install. The only files I could find were ones that I deleted years ago and haven't looked at since.

I still have absolutely not clue what happened. I put in a service request to Microsoft, and I got several callbacks. But when I pressed 1 to speak to someone, nothing happened. They've called me back several times and the same thing happens every time. Eventually they just hang up because it thinks you're being unresponsive.

I'm not an Apple user (always PC), but Microsoft has been making it so damn hard to stay with them. It's WILD to me how much worse they are making nearly everything. It blows my mind that a company like theirs can't get out of their own way.

"New" Teams sucks ass still. Had to uninstall and reinstall today because it sometimes just doesn't show certain Teams to me. Even the web version does it. I have files saved in those Teams I need, but I'm having to access them through Sharepoint or through a backup I made elsewhere.

"New" Outlook is even worse. They've taken away functionality they've had for years! I'm dreading the day they force us to use it.

Windows 11 and all its bull***** I'll update just because I want security updates to continue, but I'm pissed about it.

Word seems mostly the same, and Excel and PowerPoint have gotten better. That may be it though.

I also had to do a OneDrive update today because things just stopped syncing on one device. Luckily I hadn't altered too many files before noticing. I only use it for work though. Personal files are backed up with Dropbox and GoogleDrive. Of those, Dropbox is really the only one that hasn't given me trouble. I need to do another hard drive backup though.

Have you checked your OneDrive online through your browser? Maybe I missed that you did, but if not take a look there. Also make sure your logging into the account you were using on your old Mac. I wonder if your are inadvertently logging into a new/different account when you install O365. Just some suggestions.

I did and nothing was there except a few really old files. And it was only the new account/onedrive.

My old computer didn't have 365. It only had word, excel and ppt, and I got them by paying something like $25, and I got a code to do a one time installation of those applications. Everything ran off my hard drive. If there was an account associated with that, it was never used after that initial install, and I can't imagine it would even be accessible since you can't get the apps that way any more.

It's almost as though my computer reverted back to some 5+ year old version of itself. In the back of my mind, I wonder if iCloud could have contributed to this (I didn't back up my old laptop to iCloud, I backed it up to an external hard drive). I'm wondering if for some reason, OneDrive prioritized what was on iCloud over what was on my actual hard drive. Should be the other way around, but with everything cloud based now, maybe what's on a hard drive isn't given priority because 365 is not expecting much to be there.

The Apple support guy did say he's seen a lot of cases with issues between iCloud, OneDrive, and other cloud storage sites (Google). They just don't play nice together.

I honestly thought I was doing the right thing having everything saved to my hard drive. I never would have imagined a software program like MS 365 would have deleted anything from a hard drive, much less the entire contents of it. Makes me wonder what else this installation has done to my computer that I just haven't noticed.

Kudos for your diligence. As an IT guy it is heartbreaking when people don't have backups. I am curious who you use for your cloud backups. I am an iDrive fan but also move stuff between data centers myself with a VPN.

Previous to this I only had iCloud. And I wasn't using that to back up my Mac. I was using an external hard drive. Since the backup wasn't automatic, that's basically how I ended up not having current versions of my files. I could have sworn I'd backed up recently, but clearly not.

I also thought maybe I had the spreadsheet saved in some emails (I email myself stuff all the time), but I didn't have that either.

The main spreadsheet I wanted back was 20 years of personal financial data/tracking. Literally every dollar I've earned and spent. That spreadsheet is so valuable when it comes to tracking things like property taxes, insurance costs, medical expenses, etc. so I was desperate to get it back. It's basically my whole financial life in one spreadsheet.

The version I found was an autosave version from July 2023, so I only have to recreate about 2 years of data. Prior to doing the Diskdrill, the only version I had was missing 5 years of data.

TXTransplant said:

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I recently migrated from an older Mac to a newer one.

My old mac had versions of excel and word saved on it (not this new Microsoft 365/onedrive trash). The files I used regularly were saved to my desktop.

I migrated everything from my old mac to the new one. The files I had saved on my old desktop were now saved on my new desktop. I could see the icons on my desktop.

I opened one of the files today (it happened to be an excel file), and I could edit it but I could not save it. I purchased Microsoft 365 last fall for my son, so I decided to install that, thinking that was why I couldn't open the file.

After installing Microsoft 365, all of the desktop files on my Mac disappeared. My desktop is now blank. I was able to find some of the pdf files I had saved and return them to my desktop, but I can't find all of them (some are just gone).

None of my word and excel files are in my onedrive or my iCloud. When I open excel, the files I want show up as "recent", but when I try to open them, I get an error message that the workbook is either deleted or not currently accessible.

The file path in excel says the files are in Macintosh HD >> users >> my name >> desktop. But when I try to access this through Finder, the files aren't there.

I can search my computer and find all of my excel and word files, but, with the exception of a couple of word docs (that I don't need), all of the files names now have a ~ in front of them and the word "ineligible" below the file.

Can anyone please help? There is one excel file in particular I really want to recover. I've googled searched, and the "disappearing desktop" and issues between macs, one drive, and iCloud are known, but I can't find any information on how to recover my files and resolve this problem.

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This sucks. I noticed yesterday that a new OneDrive version was rolled out so I wonder if you somehow got caught up in that from a timing perspective.

Also, MS had/has a global issue where family members on a MS365 sub can't access MS365. This popped up two days ago. Impacted my wife. I went out of town so not sure if it's still an issue right now.

You may have been collateral damage in all of this. You also just influenced me to back everything up on my hard drive which I have not done in years. Shockingly.

The Dog Lord said:

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I'm not an Apple user (always PC), but Microsoft has been making it so damn hard to stay with them. It's WILD to me how much worse they are making nearly everything. It blows my mind that a company like theirs can't get out of their own way.

"New" Teams sucks ass still. Had to uninstall and reinstall today because it sometimes just doesn't show certain Teams to me. Even the web version does it. I have files saved in those Teams I need, but I'm having to access them through Sharepoint or through a backup I made elsewhere.

"New" Outlook is even worse. They've taken away functionality they've had for years! I'm dreading the day they force us to use it.

Windows 11 and all its bull***** I'll update just because I want security updates to continue, but I'm pissed about it.

Word seems mostly the same, and Excel and PowerPoint have gotten better. That may be it though.

I also had to do a OneDrive update today because things just stopped syncing on one device. Luckily I hadn't altered too many files before noticing. I only use it for work though. Personal files are backed up with Dropbox and GoogleDrive. Of those, Dropbox is really the only one that hasn't given me trouble. I need to do another hard drive backup though.

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Don't get me started on teams and sharepoint. I have to use them at work, and I hate them. I'm always having problems with word docs on sharepoint. And the version of word that opens by default in share point is trash.

One thing that ticks me off about MS 365 is I'm paying $90 a year for a bunch of stuff I don't want. All I need is excel and word. But with 365, you have to install everything. Now I have defender and outlook and TEAMS and a bunch of other unnecessary stuff on my personal computer.

Thinking about this more - my original file was 20 years old. I was working in a version of excel that I installed probably 10 years ago. The files are fine from a compatibility standpoint. I've emailed myself other excel files I created on my computer and they open on my work computer.

I wonder if 365/Onedrive just doesn't want to deal with those old files. Like they've intentionally created an incompatibility issue to force you into the new cloud based system (because I know historically Microsoft has liked to create problems between software versions).

And instead of trying to merge the files, they just get deleted. I do think it is unacceptable for any cloud based program installation to delete files off our your personal hard drive. That just crosses a line and is unethical.

I'm amazed at how utterly crap Teams is. W11 also refuses to respect my choice in keeping it disabled as a Startup app. I have to re-disable it weekly.

In addition, even if I need to use it the local app doesn't work anyway. I have to use the web version because the local version won't load properly.

And as someone else said, they are going to ruin Outlook if they force you to New Outlook. It has about 30% of the functionality of the "old" Outlook.

Excel and PowerPoint are still far superior to Google equivalent especially the latter and old outlook is superior to Gmail but if they ruin those I'll have to do something else.

I have wondered for years why no one will come out with a decent sub for excel, so I can dump Microsoft altogether. I don't even need full functionality, just something better than Numbers and Sheets.

I think the downgrades to outlook are intentional. Companies like mine want to move away from it because it keeps information siloed. Managers don't like it because when someone leaves, they have to manage their inbox to make sure info isn't lost. Legal/business transformation doesn't like it because you can't as easily force your company records retention policy on email. I hear people say all the time that outlook/email is going away and we are going to work exclusively in teams/sharepoint. Problem is, neither of those are good enough platforms to take the place of outlook/email.

But instead of improving teams and sharepoint, they downgrade outlook to force the transition.

TXTransplant said:

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I have wondered for years why no one will come out with a decent sub for excel, so I can dump Microsoft altogether. I don't even need full functionality, just something better than Numbers and Sheets.

I think the downgrades to outlook are intentional. Companies like mine want to move away from it because it keeps information siloed. Managers don't like it because when someone leaves, they have to manage their inbox to make sure info isn't lost. Legal/business transformation doesn't like it because you can't as easily force your company records retention policy on email. I hear people say all the time that outlook/email is going away and we are going to work exclusively in teams/sharepoint. Problem is, neither of those are good enough platforms to take the place of outlook/email.

But instead of improving teams and sharepoint, they are downgrade outlook to force the transition.

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Probably so. We use Google Workplace at our company which is utter trash. I still use my own MS365 for Excel and Powerpoint and then have to deal with the incompatibility issues which are still less of a PITA than outright using Google Slides and Sheets.

While we use GMail, I would say 90% of our company communication happens in Slack. Email is used almost exclusively with external customers but even then we have a few Slack channels with external Customers. I would be fine going 100% all-in on Slack for all internal comms although Slack has its own cons. Once you get 57 different conversations going because of all the permutations of people that might be involved it can get unwieldy. But I hate Gmail that much that I would rather go all-in with Slack.

My last 14 years I worked at Intel and AMD. Microsoft is stinky garbage and working with Microsoft is miserable. Every new release generates mountains of Microsoft debug. You always work with pre-release which is infinitely worse than what's released to the wild. We're all Apple with a few Microsoft boat anchors that never get turned on. We even keep a spare Apple laptop in case one of the kids in college lose theirs.

Quote:

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I have wondered for years why no one will come out with a decent sub for excel, so I can dump Microsoft altogether. I don't even need full functionality, just something better than Numbers and Sheets.

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This is a tall order. For all Microsoft's problems, Excel is one of the best pieces of software every created. It really is miles ahead of any other spreadsheet application. For most people, myself included, they don't need 80-90% of what Excel can do.

LibreOffice is far better than Sheets, still doesn't touch Excel, but is more than enough for my needs. It also opens and saves excel formats well, so your existing spreadsheets will be fine for the most part.

TXTransplant said:

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All of my trash bins are empty. It's like my desktop files never existed. I was able to recover some PDFs, but all the word and excel docs are gone.

I spent a good hour and a half on the phone with Apple support. They were awesome, but they couldn't find my files. What I'm seeing in the excel and word apps are "temporary" files, which is why they won't open. The actual files that I had saved on my desktop are nowhere to be found. It's only those temporary files that even prove they ever existed.

I've lost the last 5 years of all my financial info. It makes me sick. I honestly thought I had a back up on my external hard drive, but I can't find it.

And, I had already wiped my old laptop clean when I tried to install 365 (because my new laptop matched my old laptop exactly, and files were opening, so I thought I was good to go). So, I can't get the files back from that, either.

The most confusing thing is, where the heck did my desktop files go? Microsoft 365 swears they don't delete anything. The only think Apple support can guess is that when I installed 365, there was some issue between iCloud and OneDrive which caused my files to not be uploaded to either place.

This is so frustrating because I had no choice on how 365 would be installed. If I wanted to be able to use my excel files and save changes, I had to do the install. But it basically caused me to lose everything.

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my desktop files disappeared when my work PC updated a few months back. Infuriating!

The Dog Lord said:

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I'm not an Apple user (always PC), but Microsoft has been making it so damn hard to stay with them. It's WILD to me how much worse they are making nearly everything. It blows my mind that a company like theirs can't get out of their own way.

"New" Teams sucks ass still. Had to uninstall and reinstall today because it sometimes just doesn't show certain Teams to me. Even the web version does it. I have files saved in those Teams I need, but I'm having to access them through Sharepoint or through a backup I made elsewhere.

"New" Outlook is even worse. They've taken away functionality they've had for years! I'm dreading the day they force us to use it.

Windows 11 and all its bull***** I'll update just because I want security updates to continue, but I'm pissed about it.

Word seems mostly the same, and Excel and PowerPoint have gotten better. That may be it though.

I also had to do a OneDrive update today because things just stopped syncing on one device. Luckily I hadn't altered too many files before noticing. I only use it for work though. Personal files are backed up with Dropbox and GoogleDrive. Of those, Dropbox is really the only one that hasn't given me trouble. I need to do another hard drive backup though.

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you can't drag and drop files from Explorer anymore.

Ugh...were you able to recover them from some deleted items folder?

It really is unacceptable that any sofware update would do that.

TXTransplant said:

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But instead of improving teams and sharepoint, they downgrade outlook to force the transition.

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Not in a corporate environment so I'm not required to keep it up to date -- I still use Outlook 2010. I've upgraded a handful of times to see if certain features/functionality make it worth it, and all it does is get worse. Outlook peaked in 2010.

TXTransplant said:

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Ugh...were you able to recover them from some deleted items folder?

It really is unacceptable that any sofware update would do that.

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No, they were just gone. IT couldn't find them either.

That sounds like what happened to me.