I deleted a file I want back – Do you have backups or snapshots available?

Snapshots/Backups

Snapshots of users’ home directories are taken every hour. You can access up to 23 hourly, 6 nightly, and 52 weekly snapshots of your entire home directory in the ~/.snapshot directory. Alternatively, from any subdirectory, you can go directly to .snapshot, then the timed directory you prefer.

Note: Older backups (beyond the first weekly) are available in /backup/username/.snapshot. They are moved to a different drive space to ensure their availability.

Restoring an older version of a file is as easy as copying it from a location in .snapshot to your home directory proper. You can do this graphically (with Nautilus, for example) or with the cp command.  ‘.snapshot’ is hidden (notice the preceding ‘ . ‘).  Try:  cd ~/.snapshot  from a Terminal.

Many of the hosted network shares (for departments and research groups) are also snapshotted. As above, cd to the .snapshot directory.

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