If you can’t remember the name of the file, try typing any relevant keywords you can think of. To search your system for a file, click the Windows icon in the lower-left, then begin typing the file’s name. You might have either saved or moved your files to a different folder than you thought. This is as true for digital files as it is for your keys, glasses, or TV remote. Sometimes, the thing you want isn’t where you think you left it last. Read on to learn more about what you can try next. But if you’ve trashed something that you actually want, have a quick peek in the Recycle Bin, and you might just get lucky.Īfter you empty your Recycle Bin, these files become “permanently deleted.” But it’s not as finite as it sounds - there are multiple methods for how to recover permanently deleted files from the Recycle Bin. After you restore it, it’ll go back there.Īfter restoring this file, we can see that it’s back on the Desktop, where it used to be.Ĭomputers can often slow down over time as they accumulate heaps of junk files, bloatware, and other useless data, and deleting these can help bring an older PC back to speed. If you’re not sure where it was originally stored, right-click it and select Properties, and you’ll see the file’s original storage location listed as the Origin. This will return the file to its original location on your computer. On your desktop, open the Recycle Bin by double-clicking it, or by right-clicking it and selecting Open.įind the file you want to recover, then right-click it and select Restore. Until then, they’re only “temporarily deleted.” Here’s how to recover deleted files from your Recycle Bin in Windows 10: Instead, they’re transferred to your computer’s Recycle Bin, where they sit until you decide to empty it. When you delete files, they’re not actually lost permanently.

Windows 10 system restore greyed out