Have you stored a few important documents, but lost them recently? Have you accidentally deleted a few files? Or, perhaps, erased them on purpose and changed your mind later? Maybe all your documents got damaged due to malware. Whatever the reason may be, you have lost a few essential documents, and you are looking for a method to get them back. If this is the case, then you have reached the right place. We have listed a few methods to help you recover documents deleted from your desktop. Keep reading to find the best method that suits you the most, and work it out. You will get all your documents back in no time. It is almost sure that you will recover your documents, by any one of the methods mentioned below. Let us stop wasting time, and we’ll now get to the recovery process.
Method 1 – Checking Out The Recycle Bin
As we all know, whenever we delete something from our desktop, it directly goes into the Recycle Bin. This acts as a temporary storage location, and you can recover your deleted files from here. This method is the simplest of all the methods listed here. Also, this is the first thing you need to do if you are looking for missing files. If you have already checked your Recycle Bin, or if your files were not deleted, but damaged, then this method does not suit you. You can go on with the next method listed below. This is how you can recover files from your Recycle Bin.
- Open your Recycle Bin.
- Tip. You will probably find it on your Desktop. If not, click on Start, and search for Recycle Bin.
- Once in there, you will find a list of all the files that you have deleted previously.
- Find and select all the files that you want to recover.
- Right click on them, and click on Restore from the options listed.
That’s it. All the files that you just selected are back on your device. They are moved to their previous location. So just make sure to check the previous locations of those files. If your document is not found on your Recycle Bin, then you can move on to the next method.
Method 2 – Using Restore Points to Recover Documents Deleted From Desktop
Periodically, your system creates a few “checkpoints”. These checkpoints can be considered as a snapshot of the current state of your system and are known as Restore points. Usually, this feature is switched on by default. However, if you have switched it off manually, there are no restore points, and you cannot use this method to recover your deleted documents. We use those restore points to recover the documents deleted from your desktop. First, we will check whether any of these restore points can do the trick, and then we will move on to using them to restore our data. Here is what you need to do –
- First of all, go to your File explorer.
- Go to the location –> C:\Users\[Username].
- Right-click on Desktop from here, and select Restore previous versions from the options listed below.
- A list of all the available versions will be displayed here. Select the perfect version that you want to restore. (An ideal desktop version is the one which is dated after the creation of the document and before deleting it).
- Click on Restore.
That’s it. Your desktop is now restored to a previous version. This means that your Desktop is the same as it was on that date. You will find your deleted files to be present now. However, you need to remember that all new files that you created after the backed-up version will disappear. Make sure that you create a copy of all those files you want before moving on to a previous version.
Method 3 – Recover Deleted Documents From Desktop Using a Backup
There are a lot of ways to make periodic backups on your device. These backups can be used to recover all your lost, damaged, or erased data. So, if you have enabled a periodic backup of all your data on your desktop, you can probably get all of them back in no time. You just need to find the perfect backup file, and if it is present, you can easily restore its contents. As mentioned before, a viable backup file is that which was made after creating the file you are looking for, and before you deleted it.
- Go to the Control Panel of your device (You can reach it from your Start Menu, or by searching through your device).
- From the menu item named System and Security, click on Backup and Restore.
- A new page will open up. Click on Restore my Files.
- A list of all the available backup files will be listed here. Select the backup file.
- Tip. You can do this by manually browsing all the files, or by using the Search bar on the top.
- Click on Next.
- After this, select the location of restoring your files. You can either choose to restore them to their original location, or direct them to a location that you specify.
That’s it. All the files in your backup will now be restored to the location that you provided before. You can find all the documents that you are looking for in this location. However, if you have not enabled a regular backup on your device, you may not have the right backup with you. If this method does not work for you for some reason, move on to the next method.
Method 4 – Using Third-Party Data Recovery Software to Restore Erased Documents From Desktop
If you have tried all the techniques above, and you are still not able to recover your removed documents, then your next option is to go to third-party data recovery tools. All you need to do is to install any one of those software programs and select the location of the deleted documents you are looking for (previous location). These programs complete an in-and-out scan of your device and then list out all the deleted and damaged files. You can select all the files that you want to recover and just hit the Restore button. You will get all of your lost files back in no time.
The problem is, there are hundreds of such programs available in the market, and you have to select the best among them. But don’t worry; we are here to help you out. We have listed the best video recovery software available, in our opinion, on the Internet. Go through the list and pick the one that suits you the most.
Method 5 – Using External Data Recovery Solutions
Have you tried out all the methods that we mentioned, and are you still struggling to find out a method to recover the documents erased from the desktop? Then there is almost nothing more that you can do yourself. However, you can try seeking experts’ help. There’s a large number of data recovery services available in the market. These services offer to recover all your damaged, lost, or erased data. The catch is, you must pay them a considerable amount. In return, they help you out with recovering all your deleted documents. For obvious reasons, we only suggest trying this method if your data is valuable and you need it back at any cost.
