PSA: My first Python script deleted a folder of family photos

I was in my home office last night trying to automate cleaning up my downloads folder with a simple script. I mixed up the path for the folder I wanted to delete and the script wiped my 'Pictures' folder instead, about 500 photos gone. Has anyone else made a huge mistake with file paths and how did you get your stuff back?

3 comments

3 Comments

drew9651mo ago

Well that's a new way to do spring cleaning. I guess the downloads folder and the pictures folder do both start with letters, so easy mix up. My biggest fear is accidentally running "rm -rf" on the wrong thing while half asleep. Check if you have any backups from your phone or cloud storage, sometimes they sneakily save you.

ellis.hayden1mo ago

Honestly, how bad is it really to lose some old pictures? I bet half of them were blurry shots or random screenshots you'd never look at again. Cloud backups are kinda creepy anyway, saving everything without asking. Maybe a clean slate isn't the worst thing.

the_jason1mo ago

My buddy lost 10 years of photos in a crash and still gets sad about it. Those blurry shots turn into memories you can't replace.