Trouble saving documents

Question

When I save a document, it does not show up in Documents for a long time. I can use Finder to find and open the document if I can remember what I named it. Sometimes I remember the subject, but I can't remember the name I gave it, but it usually shows up in Documents in a few weeks. I don't remember having this problem when the computer was new. Is this a bug in a recent OS update? The information I can find on saving documents says that they should show up in Documents, but it doesn't say how long it should take. Do I have any control over how long it takes?

Answer 1

Can you save a document to a folder not in the Documents folder?
Funny thing, I've owned dozens of Macs and never use that folder.
Usually, you can choose a folder or path to have items saved there.
In fact, since I am often the only user of a computer and sometimes
have two user accounts, still do not use these user-account specialty
folders. I've often did as I had said, in creating a folder on the hard
disk drive and an alias to it on my desktop, or drag a link/icon into
the Dock (next to the Trash in Dock is an easy location to put it.)
Sounds as though there still may be some issues in the computer's
system, regarding how your created files are handled. You could
boot the computer from the Tiger install disc and run Disk Utility from
the version found in the Installer's menu bar (do not run the install
sequence, the finder-like Installer menu bar has options in a drop-
down menu, like finder does; you can launch Disk Utility and do other
jobs from the Installer, without installing anything.
If using the booted Tiger installer's Disk Utility, be sure to avoid any
of the extra features this utility can do in this situation; it can do a
fair amount of damages should you do more than 'repair disk' and
'repair disk permissions' out of turn. It can reformat, erase, partition.
The 9GB of remaining space in the hard disk drive may become a
marginal asset, since up to 5GB of the hard drive can be used for
the System and Apps, as Virtual Memory and temp swap files. That
would leave a dangerously low amount of 'free space' overall.
My computer drives have about 70% free space, except in my iBook,
and that has about 60% free space since it has extra spare installer
.dmg files in a folder there. I try and keep a good backup clone on an
externally enclosed FireWire bootable hard disk drive, of each Mac HD.
(Your Mini is probably an Intel-based Mac; so a backup external enclosure
for a hard disk drive for clones & backup would likely be USB2.0; if you
get one, be sure the vendor knows Macs. Get one that can support clones
and booting OS X from a drive in such an enclosure. If the Mini has ports
for FireWire, then get an external drive enclosure with FW & USB2.0.)
For general periodic maintenance, I have and use OnyX, so about once
a month or so (if bored, sooner; if forgetful, later) and have OnyX set in
its own preference setting, to restart the computer automatically when it
is done running any task it would require or recommend a restart when
done; so it does that. I can leave it after launching the selected choices
in Automation (checkboxed items can be chosen) and usually choose All.
{This does not mean it will start & run all by itself; I don't know if it can do
that aspect of scheduled maintenance, since this requires an Admin PW
to launch; so you'd have to be there to run OnyX, or remote login to do it.}
• OnyX - Titanium Software:
http://www.titanium.free.fr/pgs/english/apps.html
This can take some time, depending on the size of the hard disk drive
and other particular items in each machine's configuration. Maybe up
to 45 minutes on a drive if not too full. Could take longer on yours.
At some point, given the age of your computer and the fullness of the
capacity of the hard disk drive, you may have to consider the wear &
age of the moving parts sufficient reason to replace the hard disk drive.
If you do have or are considering a complete backup of the computer's
contents, there are external drive enclosures which can support a full
computer clone (free-running clone utilities are downloadable) and you
could backup the computer's contents; and a good boot-able clone is
about the best assurance you can still access your data if the main drive
in the computer should fail. You can make & test a clone before any
disk maintenance, reinstall from scratch, or an old drive gets replaced.
The time probably has come to consider these ideas and learn more.
And an all new installation on a low-level erased & reformatted hard
disk drive, and updated to the last Tiger 10.4.11 combo; would be a
basis for a cleaner and faster running system. Then, the last security
update, java updates, quicktime, browsers, Flash & Shockwave players,
could be applied; and only the apps you use most, reinstalled & updated.
Even without a new internal hard disk drive, could be a great refresh.
An external drive could be a home for more than just a bootable clone of
the computer's current content, a backup; the external can be partitioned
and more than one clone or different system version could be on there;
or a partition used for storage of items to be used alongside the Mac.
iTunes and iPhoto libraries can be relocated or moved to an external; so
as to free-up the internal drive. Generally, to keep it from being too full.
And I suspect your current hard drive status may be marginal, in that little
free or unused space exists; and if needed, you could not perform an
'Archive & Install/update' procedure or other helpful major tasks within it.
Anyway, I do not have a specific answer as to why the files you have
saved to the Documents folder are not going there. They should be
appearing in your User folder, since all your user activity when booted
in and logged-in a user account would go in there; generally speaking.
You should be able to search for a folder you made, by date, and see
if it still exists or if it was overwritten by something else & is missing.
The best cure to most OS X issues is preventative maintenance; but
in some (few) cases, in a newer and unproven system, other issues
may be the cause of some odd problems. But OS X 10.4.11 is very
stable and if kept up, probably the best system version so far; in the
comparison of non-current systems.
Good luck & happy computing!