Restore Files from Cache?

[pixeldroid.000]

Is it possible to get iMatch to restore the files in C:\ProgramData\photools.com\imatch6\previewcache to a new file hierarchy that matches the original?
Thanks.

[Mario]

What do you want to achieve?

This folder includes cache images IMatch has created from your files.
Did you lose your original files and now want to "restore" them from the cache images IMatch has created?
How many files? Note that IMatch does not by default cache JPG images and that the cache files can be (much) smaller than the original files, depending on your settings.

The file name of the cache image is derived from the image's unique id. And from that Id we can get the folder and original file name. This would require a purpose-built script or app of course.

When you select a file in IMatch, you can use this variable in VarToy to see the name of the cache image:

{File.CacheFileName}

Now you can copy the cache file into the correct folder and name it accordingly.

Or it could be maybe done with some Batch Processor trickery, enabling the "Use Cache File" option and the above variable as the output file name. Something to try.

[pixeldroid.000]

Thousands of my files lost. You would think then after 35 years in IT I would know that things can always go wrong and I should have 3 backups of everything. Over the past several years I've come to trust Dropbox because really what can go wrong? Well, now I know of an obscure sequence of events that can go wrong with Dropbox:

I used robocopy sync to delete a years-old disconnected Dropbox folder. This method does not offer a straightforward recovery path. Bizarrely and unfortunately, some sort of internal state confusion or who-knows-what error caused Dropbox to remove over 10K files from my image library in a completely separate (still live) DBox folder. It didn't wipe out the whole folder, just most of my downloaded images. The folders vanished silently, without warning, and without being flagged as deleted in Dropbox's interface.

In case anyone finds their way here, here's the fix that worked for me:
After spending hours planning a recovery strategy using your instructions (thanks for the quick reply) and AI, I stumbled upon a fix on DBox Web: After running a 'Rewind' DBox will restore the files. BUT, it leaves them (or at least many of them) in a 'deleted' state. In order to "Restore" them, you need to select "Show deleted files" from the gear menu next to a folder. When a deleted folder/subfolder is visible, click the checkbox and choose Restore. This will recursively restore all files and subdirectories. 'Show Deleted Files' will not be reset when navigating the folders themselves. But don't use Folder Tree View for this because 'Show Deleted Files' gets reset and must be chosen from the gear menu each time the directory is changed.

Downside, you must go through the folder hierarchy manually to expose the deleted dirs. Updside, I restored a huge amount of work... IMatch then reloaded the files no problem.

Thanks again for your quick reply!

[Mario]

This ended well, then. Good for you!

Cloud-space is great for backup, but IMHO only as a second or third tier.
You can always lose access to your cloud space by some reason (getting locked out because of some fuzzy policy violation and no support given) or the service has an error and you loose data. Or for a dozen other reasons.

Having all data e.g. on (multiple and rotated) USB drives under you control is far more secure. I also prefer never to upload anything to the cloud that has not been locally encrypted first. This ensures that when the cloud vendor is too curious (or wants to feed its AI's with your data, which is pretty common these days) they get nothing.

[Jingo]

I also prefer never to upload anything to the cloud that has not been locally encrypted first. This ensures that when the cloud vendor is too curious (or wants to feed its AI's with your data, which is pretty common these days) they get nothing.

I too have started to follow this same logic.  Though I backup everything nightly to local drives and weekly to external USB, I also have started utilizing my paid Gdrive as a 3rd backup option for my processed photos.  All photos are encrypted locally first using cryptomator, then auto sync'd to google drive via the Google Drive application.  Pretty neat process and the encryption makes me happy to keep prying eyes and stealing fingers from the files.

[pixeldroid.000]

@Jingo:
Thanks for the suggestion! I like the idea of using GDrive as a backup. But it looks like in my case the Google sync software would have deleted the files after DBox deleted them. I use SyncBackPro for backups - it has a versioning feature...

[sinus]

Backups, additionally, on external USB, like Jingo wrote, is also very good, they are nowadays quite cheap and you have it in your own hands. 

[Mario]

Luckily, creating and maintaining backups has become quite easy these days.
External USB SSDs are very affordable.
Software like Macrium Reflect can do multiple backups automatically in the background to external USB disks and on cloud storage, fully encrypted. It also maintains backup cycles like daily, weekly, monthly, quarterly automatically, building a series of backups and deleting old backups automatically when they expire.

All we need to think of is to swap the external disks once a day. Which becomes routine.
Cloud is great as a second tier, when data us encrypted locally. 

A 65€ per year Microsoft Office 365 Subscription (via Amazon) gives me 6 TB (!) of cloud storage (1 TB per user), which is unbeatable cheap.

[pixeldroid.000]

Thanks for those suggestions.

Curious: If you are making many backups, say daily, and then you run into a problem, how do you determine which backup to restore (or search for missing files)? Do you search them manually to find missing files?

Thanks.

[Mario]

Yes, this is what I would do. Going back from the latest backup until I find what I need.
You "mount" the backup as a disk and look for the files you have accidentally removed in Windows Explorer. Usually I know when I deleted the wrong file and can mount the right backup directly. Does not happen often, though.

[pixeldroid.000]

Doesn't happen much for me either, but the nerdier you are, the bigger mistakes you can make. I need to be more consientious about backup moving forward...
Thx.