Help! Lost files

[John Ralls]

> On Apr 3, 2017, at 2:30 AM, Maf. King <maf at chilwell.net> wrote:
> 
> On Monday, 3 April 2017 11:16:48 BST Anita Graves wrote:
>> God bless you for your quick reply.
>> 
>> I had all my data for the fiscal year in one file and I renamed the Gnucash
>> data file, but don’t remember in which location I saved it.
>> 
>> I searched every file to see if it would open but nothing will.
>> 
>> After I renamed my main data file, I moved all the files from one folder
>> into another, but still, I cannot find the file with my data that will
>> open.
>> 
>> I use a MAC.  I tried the file>open, but as you say Mac opens the previously
>> open file, and said it could not find the background material or could not
>> locate the file.
>> 
>> I have 3 main data files, and only one of them will open for me, but not the
>> one I lost.
>> 
>> What can I do?  One thing that sometimes saves my skin is that I backup to
>> external hard drives.  I had one connected yesterday when I did the work on
>> the data.  That’s all I remember.  but this morning I renamed the file and
>> now can’t find my lost data.
>> 
>> Apparently there is no safe way to rename a file or a folder or anything;
>> Gnucash remembers only the exact file name and its location?


Anita,
Start GnuCash and tell it OK when it whines about not finding your file.

Open a Finder window. Click in the "search" box at the top right and enter "gnucash". 
The window will change a bit: There will be a line beginning with "Search in". At the end of that line will be a tiny '+'. Click it.
You'll get a new line with two drop-down boxes and a entry box. Change the first dropdown to "Name" and the second to "ends with".
Type ".gnucash" into the entry box. Finder will display all of the GnuCash data files on your mac. Now control-click in the list and select "View>Arrange By>Date Last Opened" and your newly renamed file should be first in the list. Single-click on that and the path to it will be displayed at the bottom.

Now go back to GnuCash, select File>Open from the menu, and navigate to the path at the bottom of the Finder window.

Regards,
John Ralls