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Is there a way to see the filenames of files I recently pressed cmd-backspace on in Finder?

I was deleting some folders in Application Support belonging to apps I uninstalled long ago. I was just using Finder to delete them. Then I emptied trash. Now I realize it would have been more useful to copy the old apps' names first, to scan my entire disk for any remnant files they left behind that I can now clean out too. But I've forgotten what the names of what some of the old apps were, was too quick to empty trash too. Is there a way to check what the names of those folders were?

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    I‘m not aware of any logs for this. Might be easiest to check the same directory on your backup and note down the application names.
    – nohillside ♦
    Commented Jul 19 at 14:38

1 Answer 1

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You can diff the backed-up directory with the current directory. E.g., just connect your time machine drive, navigate to Application Support inside of the most recent backup, and drag-and-drop it into terminal to get its path in a command like:

$ diff <(ls /Volumes/.timemachine/.../Library/Application\ Support) <(ls ~/Library/Application\ Support)
9d8
< Adobe/
37d36
< Microsoft Visual Studio/
...

The < lines are the names of the folders you deleted.

You don't have to use time machine for backups to diff their contents, as long as you have a backup somewhere.

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