Although this did not happen to me when I tried to replicate the symptom (and I can’t say I was disappointed), it has been confirmed by numerous postings to the Apple Support threads. While no one has reported a sure way to prevent the deletions or why some are victim to the bug and others are not, there are several suggested solutions for retrieving the missing documents.

One retrieval method involves going to the Mobile Documents.delete folder in the home directory Library of your Mac. To get to the Library folder (which is invisible in Lion), hold down the Option key when accessing the Go menu in the Finder; the Library item will appear. Select it. Once inside—and assuming you’ve enabled iCloud for iWork documents—you should at least see a folder called Mobile Documents. Within this folder will be copies of all of your iWork documents currently available in iCloud. You may also see a Mobile Documents.delete folder. If so, this is where you’ll find the documents that have disappeared. To get your documents back in iCloud, follow the detailed instructions given in . For another possible solution, involving extracting the missing documents from an iOS backup file, check out .

Surprise! It turns out that there is automatic syncing between Macs and iCloud after all! It happens in the Mobile Documents folder. However, this is not a folder that Apple intends for end-user access. So be careful when meddling here. It is of limited value in any case. You may note that documents in this folder are themselves folders, not documents. To convert one of these folders to an iWork document, remove the “-tef” from the extension in its name. Do this with a copy, moved elsewhere, not the original. Even if you do this, the document will not open in the Mac versions of iWork documents. It remains in an iOS-only format.