How to Recover Deleted Folders in Windows?

Folders serve as organizational tools for sorting various types of files on your computer. For instance, you might have one folder dedicated to music and another for videos or movies. Similarly, you could have a separate folder for your business documents. The system can be as detailed as you'd like.

However, it's crucial to recognize that folders are not immune to accidental deletions or losses—just like individual files. When you inadvertently delete a folder, the ramifications are greater since you're erasing multiple files at once, not just one.

The silver lining here is that, much like individual lost or deleted files can often be recovered, so can entire folders, whether you're using a Windows or macOS system. This article will guide you through the process of restoring deleted folders on your computer.

What Happens When You Delete a Folder?

When a folder gets deleted, what happens is that the system makes the folder irrelevant and removes the reference data that makes it readable by the OS. So, the operating system won’t recognize the folder anymore, and as such, you won’t see the folder in file explorer.

In the real sense, deleted folders are still on the hard drive they were deleted from. It’s just that they’re missing the attributes that make them readable by the drive/operating system. This means to say that when a folder is deleted, it relegates to an “unimportant” sector/partition of the hard drive where the system deems it irrelevant, and as such, its content is ignored.

But then, it is important to know that deleted folders and files can get overwritten if you continue to save new data to the hard drive. That said, when you mistakenly delete a folder from your computer, you should try to recover it as soon as possible before it gets overwritten. Once overwritten, it’s practically impossible to retrieve the folder or files inside.

How to Recover the Accidentally Deleted Folder?

There are a few ways to recover folders that you mistakenly deleted from your computer. This ranges from checking the recycle bin to using a third-party professional data recovery app.

Method 1: Restore from Windows Backup

Windows OS includes a backup option that lets you retrieve lost files without launching a third-party application. This utility backup/restore tool is available as part of Windows Control Panel features, and you can access it on any computer, regardless of the Windows OS version. Hereunder are the steps to restore deleted files from the Windows Backup utility tool.

• Open Control Panel and select to view “All Control Panel options”

• Look out for Backup and Restore, and open the option

• On the Restore tab, select “Restore my files”

• Follow the prompts to restore your previously backed-up files

Note: If you didn’t earlier activate this backup feature, there’d be nothing for you to restore. You should try other methods.

Method 2: Restore with “Previous Version” – Works on Windows 10

If you’re running Windows 10 OS on your computer, there’s a “Previous Version” feature that works for recovering lost and deleted folders. This method works through File Explorer, which makes it easier.

• Open File Explorer

• Click on “My PC”

• Right-click on your primary hard disk drive (Local Disk (C:)) and select “Restore Previous Versions”

• Select the most recent version you believe should contain the folder you’re seeking to get back

• Click OK and wait for the restore to be complete

Method 3: Check the Recycle Bin

If the folder was recently deleted (not up to 30 days yet), you could check the recycle bin to see if it’s still in there. When files and folders are deleted from a computer, they stay in the recycle bin for about 30 days before getting wiped off. So, until it’s 30 days, there’s still a chance you can find the missing folder in the recycle bin. The recycle bin folder is usually one of the default icons shown on computer desktops after Windows OS installation is complete.

Method 4: Get Back The Folder From Your Backup

If you typically back up your files and folders to an external drive, cloud storage, or any other place/directory, then you should look in those places for the missing/deleted folder. If your secondary backup drive is an external HDD, simply plug it into the computer and recover your backup, and if it is cloud storage, log in to your cloud account and download from there. The procedures and processes of recovering files and folders from backup drives differ based on the type of backup drive or cloud service you subscribe to.

Note: If you were using Microsoft’s OneDrive cloud storage and it is automatically synced with your PC’s storage, deleting a folder from your local storage will also delete it from the OneDrive storage once the syncing goes through.

Method 5: Undo Deletion With Ctrl + Z

Okay, so you marked some folders to delete them and mistakenly selected a folder you wouldn’t have intentional want to delete, and you have pressed the “Delete” key already? Well, no problems, quickly press CTRL+Z to undelete all those folders, then you can carefully delete the actual ones you wanted to – leaving out the important one(s) that has the documents you need. But then, if you used SHIT+DELETE to delete the folders, CTRL+Z won’t get them back. You have to try other methods discussed in this article.

Method 6: Recover Permanently Deleted Folders with DiskInternals Partition Recovery Software

At some point, after you have tried all the methods explained above and none worked for you, the best reliable option is to use a third-party data recovery solution like the DiskInternals Partition Recovery app. This data recovery solution works on all Windows OS computers and features an intuitive interface – integrating a Wizard interface – that makes it easy for virtually any computer literate to use the software.

DiskInternals Partition Recovery can recover files and folders from any storage device, drive, disk, or media. It comes with three recovery modes, so you can easily choose the one that is best for you. Also, this software is more advanced than the DiskInternals Uneraser software, which also works good for system-wide data recovery on any disk. Furthermore, the Partition Recovery software can read any of the known file system formats for Windows, macOS, and Linus OSes.

With DiskInternals Partition Recovery, you can recover lost folders and files, regardless of how they were deleted from the computer. More so, you won’t have to pay for the PRO version until you confirm that your lost files have been recovered. There’s a built-in File Preview engine that lets you preview the recovered files for confirmation before upgrading your software to get them saved on your PC or remote storage. Here’s a guide to using DiskInternals Partition Recovery.

• Step One: Install the Partition Recovery software on your computer system and launch it to recover your lost folders. If the folder was lost from an external drive, connect the drive to the computer where the DiskInternals software is installed.

• Step Two: Select the drive where the lost folder was previously located and choose a data recovery mode: Fast Recovery or Full Recovery.

• Third Step: Full recovery takes more time but recovers deeply because it goes deeper into the drive to find lost files. When the scanning is complete, you’d see the deleted files appear with a red asterisk to indicate they are the files you need to recover.

• Fourth Step: Preview the recovered files to confirm they are the ones you want to get back. Simply select the file(s) and click on the “Preview” option.

• Fifth Step: The recovered files must be saved to a new storage location and not the same drive where they got lost from. Interestingly, you can export the files to remote storage via FTP.

Note: DiskInternals Partition Recovery uses an advanced recovery algorithm trusted by IT experts for more than 15 years.

Video Tutorial on How to Recover Deleted Files on Windows 11/10/8/7 Easily

How to Protect Folders from Unintentional Deletion

There are practices you can follow to have fallback data you can always refer to when you mistakenly delete a file. These are simple practices, and they work on all computers. While these practices don’t mean you will never lose files due to quite different data loss scenarios, but they will make situations easy for you when such things happen.

1: Back Up Regularly

Most definitely, you hear this every day. Backing up your files and data at all times gives you where to fall back on when the original/primary data is lost. When you have regularly updated backups, you can refer to those back and retrieve the lost files in a data loss scenario. Now, depending on the type of backups you make, you may need to download the backup files to the computer or copy them.

2: Stop Using Shift + Delete key Combination

It’s understandable that you want to completely delete some files from your computer, so you use the SHIFT+Delete key combination, which means permanent deletion. That’s cool, but maybe you should stop using that combination before it masters you, and then on every slightest occasion you need to delete a file, that becomes what you end up using.

You can still permanently delete files and folders without using this key combination. For example, after normally deleting the file, go to the recycle bin, select the file again, and permanently delete it from your computer – that’s better.

3: Don’t Just Empty the Recycle Bin

In the bid to look for more free space, most PC users immediately clear the recycle bin without checking if there are some files they may need again. It is advisable to cross-check the files in the recycle bin before you empty them. Once empty, it may be difficult for you to get back those files.

Summary

These are helpful tips on how to be more careful with your files and have a means of recovering deleted ones easily. DiskInternals Partition Recovery is the best professional data recovery software to use in the case of data loss.

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