How to Retrieve Deleted Files from Recycle Bin

Sometimes extremely important files on your computer get deleted by mistake or sometimes you delete them and later wish that you hadn't. The common thing in both cases is that you want to know how to retrieve deleted files from recycle bin? The answer to this question depends upon how long it has been since you deleted the files. If it has been only a few hours or a couple of days, the answer is very easy. But if you have deleted the files months back, then it's a little difficult. Anyway, I will give you some tips on how to retrieve permanently erased files from the recycle bin and you can try them out.

The Truth About Deleted Files

When you simply delete a file using the delete option from the right click menu, the file goes to the recycle bin. You can easily recover this deleted file using the restore option. When you delete a file from the recycle bin or when you shift+delete a file, the same process happens as in the case of deletion to the bin. And you can restore such files just as easily. Although there is a small difference between the two types of deletions. In the later case (which we think of as permanent deletion), the reference to the deleted file or the address by which the file is found on the hard drive is completely erased. Also, the space that was taken up by that file is made available for reuse by new files. If this space gets occupied by new files it becomes impossible to retrieve the old deleted file. My point is that you can easily recover deleted files and restore lost data, even if it was deleted a couple of hours ago. In the next two paragraphs, I have given some ways in which you can do that.

File Retrieval on Mac

Once you realize that you want a certain file back, make sure that you do not save anything on your computer till you have retrieved the deleted file. The file deletion and retrieval process works in the same way for both MacBook and windows. I have explained it in the above paragraph. There are two ways of retrieving deleted files from your mac. The first one is to use the timeline utility. All Macs that were manufactured after 2007 have this utility pre-installed. Using this utility is very easy. Just launch it and go back on the timeline where you still had the file and restore it. And your file is back! The other way to achieve the same thing is to use an external data recovery software. There are free and paid software available which are easy to use and retrieve your files efficiently.

File Retrieval on Vista

Retrieving files in all the versions of windows operating system is more or less the same. Unfortunately windows does not have a utility like timeline in mac. There is a third party program called deep freeze that reverses all the changes you made on your computer after a restart. But this can have several disadvantages. So it is suggested that you use some other data recovery software program that lets you retrieve your files without making any other changes on your system. Here is a small list of software which you can use for safe file retrieval.

• Recuva
• Auslogics Emergency Recovery
• Wondershare Data Recovery
• Restoration
• Smart Undelete
• Recover My Files
• FileRestorePlus
• Data Recovery Pro

I hope that now you have ample information on retrieving deleted files from the recycle bin. The important thing is to not save anything on your computer till you have got your deleted file back. Because if the space gets overwritten, it will become impossible to retrieve your file.