I clicked "save" instead of "save as" in GarageBand, how can I recover the old song?

I hit "Quit" and then it asked me if I wanted to save, so I pressed "save", when really I should have hit "cancel" and then "save as". Can I recover the old song?

Pro Q

Posted 2016-03-20T20:07:38.100

Reputation: 207

This is why you should have a backup of any information that you care about. – David Schwartz – 2016-03-20T21:28:15.890

1If you're using Time Machine, then activate GarageBand and then click the Time Machine icon, and choose Enter Time Machine. That might get you the galaxy thingy, but not for Finder, but for GarageBand. (The same trick surely works for some other Apple software, such as Mail, Contacts and Photos; just make sure they are active when entering Time Machine.) – Arjan – 2016-03-20T21:30:16.403

Answers

If you haven't closed GarageBand then try Undo (⌘+Z) option.

If it's closed and you've overwritten file there is little chance that you can recover your song because you saved that file in the same allocation. It's easier to recovery deleted files until they are overwritten by something else. You can try recovery files software like PhotoRec but as I said you have really low chances to succesfully recover it.

Wobbly

Posted 2016-03-20T20:07:38.100

Reputation: 346

PhotoRec is for when files are destroyed, not modified. PhotoRec will not work in this case. – LPChip – 2016-03-20T21:09:00.540

This data is gone unless you have any means of backup that has some form of version history, for example Dropbox, google drive, etc. Another option would be Shadow Copy, but by default, this is disabled. And how it works depends on your OS. For example it is File History in Windows 8, and has to be accessed through the Control Panel. It works differently in windows 10.

Shadow Copies work the same in Windows Server though, but I doubt that's the OS you're using.

LPChip

Posted 2016-03-20T20:07:38.100

Reputation: 42 190