This happened on both a linux machine and an os x machine.

1. On linux - I downloaded .torrent files and used them to download movie files. All the files were downloaded into ~/tmp/torrents. I moved ~/tmp/torrents into /tmp/torrents, then I moved /tmp/torrents back to ~/tmp/torrents. When I restarted my machine, the directory ~/tmp/torrents and the directory /tmp/torrents were no longer on my file system. I did a sudo updatedb and a locate, I could not find my files.

2. On mac - I downloaded .torrent files and used them to download movie files. All the files were downloaded into /Users/me/torrents. I moved /Users/me/torrents into /tmp/torrents, then I moved /tmp/torrents back to /Users/me/torrents. When I opened up the directory /Users/me/torrents, a lot of the movie files had disappeared, mainly movie files that were in /Users/me/torrents/A.DiVX.movie/* - so all directories inside of /Users/me/torrents were empty - except, I noticed directories inside of /Users/me/torrents/*/* that I had already played. Again I did an updatedb and locate, but was not able to find my missing movies.

Why did this happen?

I can't say anything about the folder in Users/me or ~/tmp (by which I presume you mean /home/<your username>/tmp") , but it is common for Linux systems to be set to clear the /tmp folder at boot time. "tmp" stands for temporary - it is a common location in which files are saved temporarily when they are downloaded. but in order to be kept permanently they need to be saved to another location.

Rob

Stop putting files in your /tmp path?

see if your torrents still exist