Accidentally deleted your MuleSoft project? Here's how to recover it
If you delete a project or file in Anypoint Studio, it might feel like all your work is gone — but your IDE has been quietly keeping a secret backup all along.
It happens to the best of us — a misclick, a rogue "Delete Project" confirmation, and suddenly your carefully crafted DataWeave transforms and Mule XML flows are nowhere to be found. Before you panic and start rewriting from memory, there's a little-known recovery mechanism built right into your workspace.
The Hidden Lifeline: Local History
Anypoint Studio is built on Eclipse, and Eclipse quietly maintains a Local History of every file you've touched. These snapshots are stored deep inside your workspace metadata — not in your project folder, so they survive project deletion.
Where to find it
Navigate to your Workspace folder on your computer and look for this path:
your-workspace/.metadata/.plugins/org.eclipse.core.resources/.history/⚠️
Hidden Folders Ahead
These are hidden system folders. You'll need to enable "Show Hidden Files" on your Mac or Windows machine before they'll appear in Finder or File Explorer. A quick Google search for your OS will give you the keyboard shortcut.macOSWindows
Open File Explorer → View → Show → Hidden items (Windows 11) or View → Options → Change folder and search options → View → Show hidden files (Windows 10).
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The Recovery Process
Once you've navigated to the .history folder, here's exactly what to do:
- Browse the subfoldersInside
.history, you'll find randomly named subfolders like84/,9b/,c3/— these are Eclipse's own internal bucketing system. Browse into them. - Identify your filesThe subfolders contain files with random names and no file extensions. These are automatically generated snapshots of your file contents at different points in time.
- Sort by Date Modified & open in a text editorSort the files byDate Modified(newest first). Open the most recent files in any plain text editor (VS Code, Notepad++, TextEdit). You'll find your
%dw 2.0DataWeave scripts and Mule XML logic inside.
💡 Pro TipIf you remember roughly when you last worked on the file, use the Date Modified column to zero in on the right snapshot quickly. You may find multiple versions — grab the one right before your accidental delete.
How Long Do Snapshots Last?
Studio retains snapshots for approximately 30 days
Eclipse Local History keeps these snapshots for around 30 days by default. The clock is ticking the moment you delete your file — so don't wait. Head to the .history folder immediately before the cache is cleared.
This trick has saved more than a few developers from an agonizing night of rewriting flows from scratch. Bookmark this post, share it with your team, and hopefully you'll never need it — but if you do, you'll be glad you remembered.
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Lesson learned: back up your workspace regularly
Local History is a great safety net, but it's not a substitute for proper backups. Consider committing your Mule projects to Git frequently — even partial work-in-progress commits — so you always have a reliable restore point that doesn't expire in 30 days.