.evolution directory disappeared when moving it - need help!

[Eric Potter]

Ari Torhamo wrote:
> Hello,
> 
> After just finnishing a three hour session of anwsering e-mails and
> writing ones I started a moment ago backing up the .evolution directory
> to a cd-rw using Nautilus CD-writer. I opend the writer window and was
> going to drag the .evolution directory to it, but accidentally dropped
> it into the window showing the present content of the CD-RW (I'm pretty
> sure I dropped it there, but I had a couple of other directories open
> too and thus I'm not positive). 
> 
Any file or directory that starts with a dot is considered 'hidden'
and wouldn't show up in nautilus unless you specifically enable it.

> When I realised my mistake, I was going to correct it and move the
> directory to the right directory window. But then I noticed that
> the .evolution directory no longer existed in any of the directories I
> had open (I also checked the sub directories), nor on the desktop. It
> was removed from my personal directory (or how do you call it) where it
> had been, but it never ended up to anywhere else.
> 
It should be somewhere within your home directory, or in a subdirectory
thereof.  It could also be in /tmp.  As a user, you wouldn't have write
priveleges anywhere else.

> Now I'm feeling like "this can't be happening". I'm new to Linux, but
> managing files and directories is nothing new to me. I didn't delete
> the .evolution directory and I didn't move it to trash. Can anyone
> please tell me what's happened here and most importanly - can I get my
> e-mails back. Can this directory have been stored somewhere - maybe
> cached or something. I'm not going to lose all my e-mails, because I
> have backed them up frequently, but it would give me a lot of work for
> coming days.
> 
Open a terminal and type this:

find ~ -name .evolution

the tilde tells the find program to start in your home directory.

> I tried to search .evolution with the graphical "search files" -tool,
> but maybe it didn't search through all directories because I wasn't
> logged in as root (I didn't want to try to log in as root, because I
> thought that that logging out might finally destroy the directory I'm
> trying to find). I know there's the "find" tool for CLI, but when I did
> "info find" I was overwhelmed by those instructions (guess I gave up too
> easy, but I should have gone to sleep for a long time ago :( 
> 
If that doesn't work, start the find from the root directory.

sudo find / -name .evolution

If this doesn't find it, it's not there.

> Is there any hope to find my .evolution folder. I wish I soon recieved
> an anwser starting with something like "Don't worry Ari, your e-mails
> are safe - just open the terminal and do...". Anyone? Deepest thank's to
> anyone who owns even a moment of brain work for this.
> 
> Ari
> 
> 
> 
>