help restoring deleted from backup

[cgm707]

I do have time machine backups. However, what I want to restore was in my Downloads folder, which I removed from being backed up, grrr. And my trash bin is empty. Of course.

Is there a way to look at the Trash bin on my backups, to try to restore what was in the Downloads folder? When I open time machine, and click on downloads, the screen doesn't go there, I guess because it wasn't included in the backup.

With the upgrade to El Capitan, I miss the ability to perform some of the tasks I used to be able to do using Onyx and Disk Utility...I know Disk Utility can perform the most important maintenance, but what about the other tasks that can only be found on utilities like Onyx and ccleaner?

[MatthewP]

TIme Machine doesnot backup your Trash, as far as i know. I don't think if it would make any sense try finding them.

[Buzz]

Anything residing in the Trash, whether it has been emptied or not, is seen as unimportant. Time Machine doesn't value trash contents and doesn't back up the unnecessary MB of whatever is in the trash.

There are tools, such as StallarPheonix which are designed to read data existing on a hard drive and possibly recover that data even though there's no direct UI access to the data. However, any data which is not part of the direct file system can and will be overwritten as you use a hard drive. Every action you take has the potential of overwriting such data. For optimum recovery, you should stop using the system until a recovery scan can be performed.

My own personal experience is that recovery has generally a 50/50 shot. The larger the file size the less the chances of recovery are, because larger files get overwritten faster than smaller files.

In any event, Time Machine won't help you recover anything which was ever in the Trash.