Recycle Bin Recovery

  1. Reading duration: 2-3 minutes
  2. Applies to: Recover deleted files from Recycle Bin in multiple types like photos, videos, and documents.

When you accidentally delete files in Windows 10/8/7, don't worry. The Recycle Bin on your PC will save all deleted files and folders for a certain period. So how to recover deleted files from Recycle Bin?

Here, 4 reliable Recycle Bin recovery methods are available to help. Follow to recover Recycle Bin on your own now. You can briefly understand what these solutions are and their applicable scenarios.

🔁Use Restore Tool The recently deleted files are in Recycle Bin, not being emptied yet.
🎯Recycle Bin recovery Software The deleted files bypassed the Recycle Bin, or you have emptied Recycle Bin already.
📀File History Backup If you have turned on Windows File History and made available backup copies.
📌Restore Previous Versions There are restore points created on your computer

Video tutorial for Recycle Bin recovery:

Method 1. Recycle Bin Recovery with Restore Feature 

The Recycle Bin will keep most deleted files on Windows computers for a certain period. You can directly perform Recycle Bin recovery and bring the removed files back from the below cases:

  • Files in the Recycle Bin are not emptied.
  • Files kept in the Recycle Bin are still in the recycling period (1 day, 14 days, 30 days, 60 days).
  • Deleted files were recycled, not bypassing the Recycle Bin.

3 Steps to Recover Deleted Files from Recycle Bin: 

Step 1. Open the Recycle Bin by double-clicking on its icon on the Desktop.

Step 2. Locate and select the deleted file(s) or folder(s) you need to restore.

Step 3. Right-click the selected item and choose "Restore". 

Or you can go to the "Manage" tab on the top pane, then click "Restore the selected items" to restore them. 

How to Recover Deleted Files from Recycle Bin

Wait patiently; the restored file will reappear in its original location with the same contents, date and time, etc. You can view and make use of these files again.

Method 2. How to Recover Deleted Files from Recycle Bin After Empty

If you empty the Recycle Bin after deleting files, the above method won't work. Also, if data were removed in the following ways, files won't be recycled but permanently deleted, including:

So how to recover deleted files from Recycle Bin after empty in Windows 10/8/7? Here, professional data recovery software - EaseUS Data Recovery Wizard, can help. It will thoroughly scan the computer drive and recover deleted files from Recycle Bin after empty. Apply this Recycle Bin recovery tool to restore your permanently deleted data now.

 Download for Win Recovery Rate 99.7%
 Download for Mac Trustpilot Rating 4.7

3-Step Guide to Recover (Permanently) Deleted Files from Recycle Bin After Empty:

Step 1. To specifically recover files from emptied Recycle Bin on Windows 11/10/8/7, hover the mouse pointer over the "Recycle Bin" option under the "Locations" section and click "Scan".

select the recycle Bin to scan

Step 2. EaseUS data recovery software will start a quick scan immediately for all deleted files, and later a deep scan will launch automatically to scan more lost files. After the scanning process, you can use the "Filter" feature to select a specific file type, such as Pictures, Word, videos, etc. 

filter files to recover

Step 3. Once you locate the files you want to restore, you can double-click it for a full preview. Then, select the target files and click "Recover". We suggest you select a different volume or an external USB drive to save the recovered files to avoid data overwriting.

recover lost files from Recycle Bin

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Mac Trash Recovery

Besides, EaseUS Recycle Bin recovery software also has a Mac version that can scan and restore deleted files from Mac Recycle Bin - Trash. If you accidentally deleted files on Mac, follow to bring your data back now.

Images of Mac Trash

Method 3. Recover Deleted Files from Recycle Bin from File History

If you have created a backup of your deleted files via Windows File History on the computer, congratulations, and you can bring them back to your PC. However, if you didn't create a backup, nothing will be found. This method only applies to Windows 8/10 users. Here are the detailed steps to recover deleted files:

Step 1. Open Control Panel, and click to enter "File History."

Head to File History

Step 2. Click "Restore personal files" on the left panel to open your backup files.

Click Restore Personal Files

Step 3. Use the left and right arrows to choose the files you want and click the Restore button.

Choose a File to Restore

For Windows 7 users, you can apply the Backup and Restore features.

Restore Files from Windows Backup in Windows 7:

Step 1. Click the Start button, and select "Control Panel".

Step 2. Then select "System and Security".

System and security

Step 3. Click "Backup and Restore", and select "Restore my files".

Restore backup files Windows 7

After this, follow the onscreen instructions to restore the deleted files that were not recycled in the Recycle Bin immediately.

Important
To protect your data and avoid file loss issues, we recommend that you create backups of all valuable data regularly.
For an all-in-one tool, reliable file backup software - EaseUS Todo Backup can help.

Method 4. Restore Recycle Bin with the Previous Version

When you delete or lose files and folders on your computer, but the Recycle Bin fails to restore them, you may try to find them from its previous version.

Note that this method is only for a try. Let's see how to find the previous version of your lost files:

Step 1. Open Windows File Explorer on your computer.

Step 2. Navigate to the folder used to save the deleted content, right-click on it and select "Properties".

Right click and click Properties

Step 3. Click "Previous Version", choose a version before the date you deleted the file, and click "Restore".

Restore deleted files from previous version

After restoration, you can reopen the file folder and check if your lost files show up in the original location on your computer. 

If this method doesn't work, turn to EaseUS Data Recovery Wizard in Method 2 for help.

More Tips on Recycle Bin Recovery

We have two more tips about Recycle Bin recovery. You can keep reading to learn how to allocate more space to Recycle Bin and how to fix corrupted Recycle Bin.

1. How to Allocate More Space to Recycle Bin

You can increase the Recycle Bin folder space with the following steps to avoid files being permanently deleted due to insufficient space:

Step 1. Right-click "Recycle Bin" and choose "Properties".

Step 2. Check the "Custom size" option, and adjust the size you want to add to the Recycle Bin.

Step 3. Click "Apply" and "OK" to save and apply the changes.

Change recycle bin size

2. How to Fix Corrupted Recycle Bin and Recover Data

Sometimes the Recycle Bin could have corrupted and stopped working. To fix this issue, please follow the steps:

Step 1. Right-click on the desktop and select "Personalize". 

Click Personalize on desktop

Step 2. Now in the left-side panel, click on "Themes".

Choose Themes

Step 3. In the right-side panel, click "Desktop icon settings".

Find desktop icon settings

Step 4. Select the "Recycle Bin" icon, click "Restore Default," and hit "Apply".

restore recycle bin icon

You can refer to the methods shown above to show or restore the Recycle Bin icon in Windows 10.

Recover Recycle Bin Conclusions

On this page, we collected three ways to help you easily recover deleted files from the Recycle Bin in Windows 10/8/7 and even older Windows computers.

You can use EaseUS Data Recovery Wizard to get things done, whether you want to recover temporarily deleted or deleted files after emptying Recycle Bin.

 Download for Win Recovery Rate 99.7%
 Download for Mac Trustpilot Rating 4.7

Moreover, we still recommend you apply EaseUS backup software to protect files on your computer. As you may know, data loss almost occurs on a daily basis.

Recover Deleted Files from Recycle Bin FAQs

After reading the passage, you may still have doubts about recovering deleted files from Recycle Bin. We hope you can learn more things from the following questions:

Can you recover deleted files on Windows 11?

You can easily recover deleted files on Windows 11 with three workable methods.

  1. 1. Recover deleted files on Windows 11 from Recycle Bin.
  2. 2. Recover deleted files on Windows 11 with File History.
  3. 3. Recover deleted files on Windows 11 with EaseUS Data Recovery Wizard.

Why can't I find a deleted file in Recycle Bin?

You may have emptied the Recycle Bin or set the auto-empty Recycle Bin on Windows. If you don't want your Recycle Bin permanently delete your files and folders, you can change the settings to stop the auto-empty Recycle Bin under the System Storage settings menu.

Where do all permanently deleted files go?

Once you enter the Recycle Bin and empty it or press Shift + Delete to remove the files, they are not erased forever. The files are still on your storage media before overwriting them, and you can recover them with data recovery software.

How can I recover deleted files from Recycle Bin?

You can recover deleted files from Recycle Bin by clicking the Restore button or from the File History backup. After emptying the Recycle Bin, you can recover files with data recovery software or restore Windows to a previous version.

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Updated by Cedric

Cedric Grantham is one of the senior editors and data recovery specialists of EaseUS who lives and works in Chengdu, China. He mainly writes articles and how-to tips about data recovery tutorials on PC and Mac. He has handled 10,000+ data recovery cases and is mainly good at data recovery of NTFS, FAT (FAT32 and ExFAT) file systems, and RAID structure reorganization of RAID 0, 5, and 10.

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Approved by Evan Galasso

Evan Galasso is a digital forensics and data recovery engineer with over 10 years of experience in the field. He presents opinions on the current state of storage media, reverse engineering of storage systems and firmware, and electro-mechanical systems of SSDs and HDDs.

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