I went to look for a specific screenshot last night and every screenshot from SL was gone. A good chunk of what I’ve taken during DF were also gone. The only thing I’ve found so far is that screenshots were erased with a patch update. I’m not sure if there’s truth to that or not or if CS is the right forum for this issue.
Has anyone else had this happen and were they able to recover their screenshots or are they forever gone?
I believe screen shots are stores locally on your pc, Blizzard does not mess with them in anyway shape or form. So I doubt a patch would in anyway over wright or erase them.
I still have screenshots in my WoW directory from five years ago.
I haven’t heard anything like that happening and like Amaelalin, I have screenshots from over the years still in my folder. If there are a bunch of similar reports, hopefully those make it to the Bug Report forums so our QA team can take a look.
Did you uninstall the game as some point? Maybe you have two builds on the computer and it’s in an old folder? I’m sorry to hear that happened. 
Not that I’m aware of. I think I’ve had to run repair on BNet a few times but don’t recall ever needing to uninstall the game. It’s been on this system since May of last year. I checked my fossil of a desktop and those screenshots are still there. I checked the Program Files and no WoW folders. It’s only in the x86 version of the Program Files. Checked documents as well as pictures and nothing. I’m not sure where else to look since that is the main location.
I did go back and read the post I found last night and it wasn’t a WoW patch but a Windows update they were referring to. Reading comprehension fail, activate! /facepalm
I’d run a search on your system for WoWScrnShot*.*
Run it on your C:\ so it searches your entire hard disk. If you want to narrow it down, you can try C:\Users and C:\Program Files
The search brought up the existing screenshots from the folder as well as 13 others but just the file name. The screenshots weren’t found so it looks like they’ve been forever lost.
I’ll be periodically backing them up from now on so this doesn’t happen again.
i just poked into your history (because i’m nosy like that) 
…and it seems that at some point you were using a laptop and a desktop.
have you checked both computers?
lol I’m the same way and also because my background is in investigations.
The desktop I was using is a fossil that was retired from gaming last May. It couldn’t handle M+ and barely squeaked by on LFR. All of the screenshots are still present on it. The laptop I started using in S3 I think of SL and had screenshots going back to then. All gone now unfortunately.
Just to touch on this for any visitors – back-ups are important. Never assume anything on a computer is safe.
Make back-upS, plural. If it’s important, store at least one copy off-site (e.g. on an external at a friend’s home). Do rolling replacements or test periodically. Don’t go down to a single back-up if you can help it – that back-up can fail.
The ironic thing is that I used to preach this ALL the time at work because if we lost any data, it could compromise the entire case and we couldn’t count on the Wish quality server to maintain a copy of everything we uploaded. Then brain fog became a permanent tenant in my head and…well we see how that’s going for me 
I’m sorry Biggiy
Never too late to start again!
It sounds like your screenshots may’ve been moved at some point though – perhaps you archived them somewhere? You can also right-click on the folder and see if Windows stored older copies.
Just to throw this out there.
Have you checked the OneDrive folder (if using Windows that is)?
By default it is found in the following location in Windows File Explorer:
C:\Users\YOUR PERSONAL ACCOUNT NAME WILL BE HERE\OneDrive