I wanted to move assets between projects, so I exported them from one and imported them to the one i was working on. I think it has overwritten my entire scene. The scene is called SampleScene, the same name on both projects. However, i exported the new scene as “food”. It was taking a long time, so I ended the task entirely, it shut down Unity Editor, and when i opened it, my entire scene was replaced with the imported one.
It replaced all the work I had done, my Canvas layer is gone and replaced by the other project’s canvas. All the grouping I had done in my heirarchy, all the work from my old scene, all missing, except that the assets are all there individually in the assets tab.
Tried clicking on the scene in assets, but it just shows me the new imported one 
Also tried restoring previous versions of the folder on Windows, but it shows no previous versions exist
pls help, i’m on the last week of my internship and i really can’t afford to lose everything i’d been working on!!
A very important fundamental thing you have to understand about Unity and assets: Every imported asset gets a unique asset ID (stored in the .meta file) This ID identifies this asset “world wide”. Changing the name of that asset would not change that asset or make it a “new” / separate asset. So “exporting” an asset and importing it somewhere else means they are considered the “exact same asset”. This is true for ANY asset (textures, models, scenes and even scripts). If you want an actual separate version / duplicate you have to actively duplicate the asset, probably before exporting it.
Another way is to delete the meta file. An asset without a meta file is considered “new” and gets a completely new random GUID.
About your “lost” scene, if you don’t have a backup of your scene it will be gone for good. When you re-import an old version of the same scene, you will be replacing the scene you already have in your project because they have the same asset ID.