How to Recover Files Deleted from Recycle Bin for Free?

How do I recover permanently deleted files from the Recycle Bin?

It’s common to delete data accidentally and then realize the importance later. If you accidentally deleted a file on your computer, it’s easy to recover it in the Recycle Bin. The Recycle Bin is a special folder that stores deleted files and folders for a limited time. It has saved lots of users who deleted files by accident, which makes recycle bin recovery easy.

However, if you have emptied the Recycle Bin or pressed Shift + Delete to delete files permanently, it’s difficult to recover files deleted from Recycle Bin unless you have backup files or other tools.

How to recover files deleted from Recycle Bin for free?

How to recover files deleted from Recycle Bin for free? There are two free methods to help you restore permanently deleted data from Recycle Bin. Before recycle bin recovery, it’s important to know that the room occupied by deleted data will be marked as unallocated space which waits for other new data to overwrite.

Therefore, please do not add new data to the drive that includes the deleted files. You couldn’t recover the deleted files if the space is covered or overwritten. You’d better stop using the drive and restore deleted data as soon as possible.

Recover files deleted from Recycle Bin with File History

You could recover files deleted from Recycle Bin if you have turned on File History. If you haven't, turn to method 2 to restore permanently deleted files with Command Prompt.

File History only backs up files regularly in the Documents, Music, Pictures, Videos, and Desktop folders, as well as One Drive files that are available offline on your computer. That is, you could add files or folders from other folders if you want to make a backup.

You could not only recover the previous versions of files if they are lost, damaged, or deleted, but search for and restore previous versions of files. This method only applies to Windows 8 and above. Follow the detailed steps below to recover deleted files from Recycle Bin with File History. (Take Windows 10 as an example)

Step 1. Press Win + Q and type “restore files” to open “Restore your files with File History”.

Step 2. Navigate to the folder that stored your deleted files. Click the “Restore” button to recover the data to the previous location.

Step 3. Alternatively, you could right-click the folder and choose “Previous Versions” to recover permanently deleted files according to the time.

How to recover files deleted from Recycle Bin for free via CMD

How to recover files after deleting from Recycle Bin? Windows File Recovery is a free way to recover files deleted from Recycle Bin for free with command lines. It’s an official app released by Microsoft in 2020 to help users restore deleted or lost files from local hard drives, like internal and external hard drives, USB drives, SD cards, etc., cloud storage not included.

Users try to input kinds of command lines to restore files according to different data loss scenarios with Windows File Recovery. Currently, Windows File Recovery only supports Windows 10 2204 and above. It has four modes to use and you need to add various switches to control the command: Regular, Extensive, Segment, and Signature. There is a basic command format for your reference:

winfr source-drive: destination-drive: [/mode] [/switches]

Step 1. Download Windows File Recovery from the Microsoft Store. Press the Windows + Q keys and type “Microsoft Store” to open. And then search “Windows File Recovery” and click “Get”.

Step 2. When you install Windows File Recovery on your computer, please open it as administrator. 

Tip: If you get the error message “WinFR requires admin privileges to run”, you could click the link to get help.

Step 3. Right-click the drive that saved the deleted files and select “Properties” to view the file system.

Step 4. There are some common switches to use. According to different recovery options, you could use switches to control the command.

Step 5. Examples:

1. If you want to recover an entire folder named “Test” from E: drive to F: drive, you could input the command like this:

winfr E: F: /n \Users\Stephanie\Documents\Test\

2. If you want to recover files with the string of “Test”, you could input:

winfr E: D: /r /n *Test*

Some users may receive the error message “Winfr.exe is not recognized as an internal or external command” when inputting command lines, please check the solutions.

Best Windows File Recovery alternative-MyRecover

MyRecover is a professional and easy file recovery tool to help users restore deleted or lost files in Windows. If you press the Shift + Delete keys for the deletion or you have emptied the  Recycle Bin, it can search all deleted files that are still stored in your storage devices with advanced scanning methods and algorithms.  

Step 1. Download and launch MyRecover on your computer. Select the partition where the files deleted from Recycle Bin were stored before. Hover the mouse over the drive and click Scan to scan.

Step 2. The software runs the scanning process quickly and goes into deep scan automatically to find more deleted files and other missing files in this partition. During scanning, you could recover any file you need.

Step 3. Select the file or the folder that you want to recover under Recycle Bin folder and click "Recover files".

Extend reading: What to do if you deleted a partition?

You could try the two methods above to solve "How to recover files deleted from Recycle Bin for free". If there are no backup files, it's recommended to use MyRecover instead of Windows File Recovery. Because MyRecover is easier to operate and has a more user-friendly user interface. Users could click buttons to recover deleted files with a higher success rate.

What if you deleted a partition? The files in the partition get lost together. AOMEI Partition recovery is the best way to help you recover deleted partitions from hard drives with simple steps. You could easily get partitions and data back together.