How to Recover Deleted Folders on Windows?

Folders Get Lost or Deleted on Windows

A folder on a computer hard drive/SSD or removable drive is a directory to save the files you want to put together or to save similar files. That is, there are usually files in a folder. However, due to some reason, some of your folders may get lost or deleted unexpectedly. If the files in the folder are important, you must want to get the folder back.

Well then, how to recover deleted folders on Windows?

Here is more than one method.

If you delete a folder on your Windows computer, that folder will be moved to Recycle Bin and stay there until you empty Recycle Bin. Before that, you can restore that folder from Recycle Bin.

If you delete that folder in Recycle Bin or empty Recycle Bin, the folder will be permanently deleted. To recover a deleted folder that is not in Recycle Bin, you will need to use data recovery software to rescue your folders or restore your folders from an available backup file.

MiniTool Power Data Recovery FreeClick to Download100%Clean & Safe

Now, we will introduce these data recovery solutions to help you get deleted folders back.

How to Recover Deleted Folders on Windows 11/10/8.1/7?

Way 1: Restore from Recycle Bin

When you can’t find your needed folders or delete folders by mistake, the first thing you can do is go to Recycle Bin and check if these folders are still there. If yes, you can directly restore them to the original location(s).

Step 1: Double-click Recycle Bin on the desktop to open it. If the Recycle Bin icon is not on the desktop, you can use the methods in this post to open it: How to open Recycle Bin.

Step 2: Find the folder you want to recover. If there are so many files and folders in Recycle, you can search your needed folder using the Search feature. You can click the Search Recycle Bin box, enter the folder’s name, and press Enter to make Recycle Bin only show your searched folder.

Step 3: Right-click the folder you want to recover and select Restore. You can also multi-select folders, right-click them, and select Restore to restore folders at the same time. The restored folders will go back to the original location(s). The files in the folders will also be back.

However, if you can’t find your folders in Recycle Bin, it usually means that these folders are permanently deleted. You will need to use a free file recovery tool to get them back if you haven’t backed up these folders before.

Way 2: Use MiniTool Power Data Recovery

If you can’t find your needed folders in Recycle Bin, it means they are deleted permanently. If so, you will need to use professional data recovery software like MiniTool Power Data Recovery to get them back.

MiniTool Power Data Recovery is a free file recovery tool that can help you recover lost or missing files from hard drives, SSDs, memory cards, SD cards, USB flash drives, and more. With the free edition, you can see if this software finds your needed files. You can also recover 1 GB of data without limits. However, if you want to recover more files, you will need to use a full edition.

MiniTool Power Data Recovery FreeClick to Download100%Clean & Safe

Here, we will show you how to get deleted folders back using MiniTool Power Data Recovery Free Edition.

Step 1: Download and install this software on your device.

Step 2: Launch this MiniTool data recovery software to enter its main interface.

Step 3: Hover over the drive which previously saved the missing folders, then click the Scan button to start scanning that drive.

Step 4: When the scanning process ends, you will see the scan results that are listed by path. You can find your needed folders from each path. Then, you can select the folder or folders you want to recover, click the Save button, and select a proper location to save the folder or folders.

If the size of the folders you want to recover is larger than 1 GB, you need to use an advanced edition to recover all folders as well as the files in them.

MiniTool Software offers different editions for personal users and business users. You can go to MiniTool Store to select a suitable edition according to your situation.

MiniTool Power Data Recovery FreeClick to Download100%Clean & Safe

If you want to recover deleted folders from a computer that won’t boot, you can use MiniTool Power Data Recovery Personal Edition to create a MiniTool bootable drive, then boot your computer from the bootable drive, and recover your folders using this tool.

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Way 3: Restore from Previous Backup

If you have backed up your computer before deleting folders, you can also restore your folders from your previous backup. The folder restore method depends on the backup tool you use.

In this part, we recommend a Windows backup software for data and system protection. It is MiniTool ShadowMaker. This software is designed to back up files, folders, partitions, disks, and systems on Windows 11/10/8/7. The trial edition allows you to free experience its features within 30 days.

MiniTool ShadowMaker TrialClick to Download100%Clean & Safe

Bottom Line

Deleted folders by mistake? Folders are missing or lost unexpectedly? Want to perform a deleted folder recovery on your Windows computer? You can just try the ways introduced in this post to help you out. Should you have other related issues or good suggestions, you can contact us via [email protected].