DCIM folders showing empty. Where did the photos go?

[SouthPhilly]

I have photos from around the world, over 20,000, representing 25 years of work. Recently I was in my DCIM folders, and the images in 2/3 of those folders have disappeared. They have not been deleted; they used to be there, and I'm at a loss for what to do. These images are from China, Europe, South America, and the Middle East. They are irreplaceable and part of my work. They were in the folders, and sometime over the last few years, they disappeared, and the folders now show blank when I open them. I'm on a MAC; all operating systems are up to date. Can anyone help? 

[Tronhard]

Hi and welcome to the forum:

Sorry to learn that you have this issue, although I suspect that if the files were already on a Mac, then this is not a Canon issue, it's a Mac one.  However, a first question - did you have backups on other discs or devices?

[SouthPhilly]

Initially, yes, especially the best images: the cloud (dropbox, iCloud), Yahoo Groups, Facebook, and a portable hard drive. The hard drive was Windows and crashed (I switched to APPLE in 2011). The Facebook and Yahoo Groups backups are irrelevant now. I deleted Facebook after the Cambridge Analytics scandal, and Yahoo Groups deleted everything when they discontinued the service a couple of years ago. However, I've been on Apple since, and half the missing photos are from 2014-2017. I  permanently transferred files straight from my EOS 20D and now EOS 60. This image is how the files appear. Unfortunately, when you click to see the pictures, most of them are empty. 

[Tronhard]

Your best port of call is Mac support. If the images were successfully transferred to the computer at one time, and you don't have copies on a set of cards, I think only Apply can help you now.

I know how that feels. Back in the days of film some stole may car with my full archive of transparencies and burnt the lot. That was why I embraced digital. But I have multiple backups and each backup I check the results to make sure they are fully copied.

[johnrmoyer]

Do you have an Apple time machine backup?

Do you have an Apple iCloud drive in finder?

Can the Apple photos.app open any of the files?

[kvbarkley]

If you were using Image Capture, did you have "delete images upon import" selected?

[shadowsports]

Greetings,

Sorry to say, but Apple will not help with file recovery on your system.  They will support the hardware and OS while under warranty, but data recovery is not part of that.  This is an end user responsibility.  We are sorry this happened.

Now its time to recover what you can, learn from this, and take steps so it never happens again.  Implement a back up solution, embrace it.  2 or more is better.  All hardware fails, file systems are not infallible.  The sooner your data is protected, the better position you will be in to see what or if anything can be recovered.  Don't wait or start experimenting.  Back up your data.  This is painful we know.  I'm sorry.