How to recover files deleted from the "Recycle Bin"

2024 Author: Malcolm Clapton | [email protected]. Last modified: 2024-01-13 00:26

If nothing was written over the erased data, you can easily get it back.

Although all operating systems warn that it is impossible to recover files deleted from the "Recycle Bin", in reality it is not. If you haven't saved anything new to disk after deletion, it's easy to get your documents back. This can be done using any data recovery software.

How to recover files deleted from the "Recycle Bin" in Windows

1. Download and install a free file recovery software. Ideally, you need to install it on a different disk from which the data was deleted, so as not to overwrite them. Your best bet is to download the Portable version of Recuva to a USB stick and run it from there.

2. After starting Recuva for the first time, you will see the file recovery wizard. Click Next.

3. Choose what type of files you want to recover: videos, photos, music, documents, and so on. Or leave the All Files option to find all files. Click Next.

4. Select the In the Recycle Bin option to search specifically in the Recycle Bin. If your files were deleted without moving to the "Recycle Bin" or the first search did not return anything, select the I’m not sure option to search everywhere. Click Next.

5. If desired, select the Enable Deep Scan option to enable a more thorough scan. It will take longer, but the results will be more reliable. Click Start.

6. After a while, Recuva will show you the files that can be recovered. Highlight them and click Recover, then select the location where you want to save them.

How to recover files deleted from the "Trash" in macOS

1. Download and run the utility called. It should be installed on a USB flash drive or other hard drive.

2. Select the drive where the deleted files were located. Click Search Data.

3. Wait while the files that you can install are found. Or click the View Found button so you don't have to wait for the scan to finish.

4. Check the files you want, click the "Recover" button and choose where to save them.

How to recover files deleted from the "Recycle Bin" in Linux

1. Download the installation package for your distribution kit and install it, then run the application.

2. Select your section where the "Basket" is located. It is usually located in the same place as the user's folders. If you chose a separate drive for your data when installing Linux, specify / home, if you did not bother with this - the root /. Right-click it and click Scan.

3. Confirm "Scanning" and wait for the process to complete.

4. Right-click the desired partition and select Show Disk Contents. Find the contents of the "Recycle Bin" in the scanned folders. Typically, the address is /home/username/.local/share/Trash.

5. Right-click Trash and select "Recover". Then specify where to save the data and click "Yes".