How to Recover Lost or Deleted Screenshots in Windows 10/11?
Screenshots on PC are the images you are captured using special screenshot tools. It is a commonly used skill to capture the screen you want to save or share with others. The screenshots are saved to special folders on your PC. Here are the common situations:
- When you use the Windows + Print keyboard shortcut to capture the screen, the screenshot will be automatically saved to the Screenshots folder.
- When you use the Xbox Game Bar to capture the screen, the screenshot will be saved to C:\Users\[User Name]\Videos\Captures.
- When you use another way to take a screenshot on a Windows PC, you need to manually save the screenshot to your specified folder.
All in all, the screenshots are saved on your PC. However, you may delete some screenshots by mistake or the screenshots get lost due to some reasons like virus attack, erroneous operation, power outage, etc.
Some of the screenshots are unique. You may not have the opportunity to take the same screenshot again. Here comes the questions:
- Is it possible to recover lost screenshots in Windows?
- Is it possible to recover deleted screenshots in Windows?
- How to recover lost or deleted screenshots in Windows?
If you have backed up these screenshots, you can directly restore them from the backup. But in most cases, there isn’t an available backup. In a situation like this, you will need to use another way to get your lost and deleted screenshots back.
Here are two ways:
- You can restore the deleted screenshots from Recycle Bin if you can find them there.
- You can use MiniTool Power Data Recovery, the best free data recovery software for Windows, to recover screenshots that are permanently deleted.
Way 1: Restore Screenshots from Recycle Bin
Files deleted from your Windows PC will be moved to Recycle Bin and stay there until you empty Recycle Bin or permanently delete them from Recycle Bin. So, if you have deleted screenshots by mistake, you can go to Recycle Bin and check if they are in it.
Here is how to restore deleted screenshots from Recycle Bin:
Step 1: Open Recycle Bin.
Step 2: Find the screenshots you want to recover and select them. Then right-click the selected files and choose Restore. If you delete the Screenshots folder by mistake, you can also find that folder in Recycle Bin and restore it.
The selected files are restored to the original location. You can use them immediately.
On the other hand, you can drag and drop the selected screenshots or the Screenshots folder to your desired location.
Way 2: Recover Permanently Deleted Screenshots Using MiniTool Power Data Recovery
If you have permanently deleted the screenshots or you can’t find them in Recycle Bin, you will need to use a third-party data restore tool to get the missing screenshots back. You can try MiniTool Power Data Recovery.
This MiniTool data recovery software is specially designed to recover screenshots, images, photos, videos, audio files, documents, and more from computer internal hard drives, external hard drives, USB flash drives, memory cards, etc.
No matter which data recovery tool you are using, it can only recover deleted files that are not overwritten by new data. So, if the tool doesn’t find your needed files, they should be overwritten and unrecoverable.
You can use MiniTool Power Data Recovery Free Edition to scan your computer and check if it can find the screenshots you want to retrieve.
MiniTool Power Data Recovery FreeClick to Download100%Clean & Safe
This software has some useful features to help you quickly find and recover files. For example, this software supports recovering files from specified folders or from Recycle Bin. This means that:
- If the deleted screenshots go through Recycle Bin, you can choose to recover from Recycle Bin.
- If the deleted screenshots were deleted from the Screenshots folder, you can also specify to recover files from the Screenshots folder.
Besides, if you deleted the Screenshots folder by mistake, you can also recover the Screenshots folder using this software.
Here we go:
Step 1: Download and install MiniTool Power Data Recovery (free edition) on your PC.
MiniTool Power Data Recovery FreeClick to Download100%Clean & Safe
Step 2: Launch the software to enter its main interface. This software will list all detected drives under Logical Drives and list all detected entire disks under Devices.
Step 3: Select the target location to scan:
>> Recover screenshots from the Screenshots folder
If you want to directly recover files from the Screenshots folder, you can click Select Folder under Recover From Specific Location, select the Screenshots folder, and then click the Select Folder button to scan it.
>> Recover screenshots from Recycle Bin
If you want to recover deleted screenshots from Recycle Bin, you can click the Scan button under Recycle Bin to directly scan it.
>> Recover screenshots from the original location
You can also recover the lost or deleted screenshots from their original location. You need to hove over the target drive and click the Scan button to start scanning it.
The scanning process will last for some minutes. You need to wait until the scanning ends to make sure you get the best data recovery effect.
Step 4: The scan results are listed by paths by default. You can open the corresponding path to find your files you want to recover.
If there are too many scanned files, you can use the following features to quickly find your needed screenshots:
- You can switch to Type to make the software display files by type.
- You can also type the name of the screenshot into the search box to directly locate it by name.
- You are allowed to preview screenshots and check if it is the file you want to recover. If you use the free edition for the first time, you need to download the package of the previewer beforehand: you can click the Preview button to do this.
Step 5: Select your needed screenshots. Then, click the Save button. On the pop-up interface, select a suitable folder to save the selected screenshots. The destination folder should not be the original location of the deleted screenshots. Otherwise, the deleted screenshots could be overwritten and become unrecoverable.
Step 6: Click the OK button to save those files.
You can use MiniTool Power Data Recovery Free Edition to recover no more than 1 GB of files. If you need to recover more, you need to use an advanced edition. MiniTool Software offers different editions for both personal users and business users. You can go MiniTool’s official store to select a suitable edition according to your situation.
If you are a personal user, the Personal Ultimate can fully meet your needs. This edition allows you to register 1 license key for 3 PCs. You can also enjoy a lifetime free upgrade.
You can register the software on the scan results interface. After you get the license key, you can click the key icon on the top menu bar and enter the license key onto the pop-up interface to register this software. By doing this, you don’t need to scan the location again. This can save a lot of time for you.
More Information about MiniTool Power Data Recovery
MiniTool Power Data Recovery supports recovering files from SSDs, hard drive disks, USB flash drives, SD cards, memory cards, pen drives, and some other types of data storage device.. If you can connect the storage devices to your PC and this MiniTool software can detect it, you can feel free to recover deleted files using this tool.
MiniTool Power Data Recovery FreeClick to Download100%Clean & Safe
This software can work in different situations. It can help you retrieve deleted files from a drive and recover data from a storage device that becomes inaccessible. If you format a drive by mistake, you can use this tool to recover the formatted data. If a partition gets lost or deleted by mistake, you can use this data restore tool to get your data back.
More importantly, this software can also help you rescue your files when your PC won’t boot normally. The personal editions and business editions (Business Standard is excluded) have snap-in WinPE Bootable Builder. You can use this builder to create a bootable USB drive, then boot your PC from that drive and recover your files to an external hard drive that has enough space to save the needed files.
Back up Your Screenshots Using MiniTool ShadowMaker
If the screenshots are valuable for you, you’d better back them up using professional data backup software like MiniTool ShadowMaker. This software can run all Windows versions including the latest Windows 11.
MiniTool ShadowMaker is also designed and developed by MiniTool Software. You can use it to back up your computer to safeguard it. For example, you can use this software to back up files, folders, partitions, disks, and systems.
You can back up your data to another drive on your computer. You can also back up your data to a USB drive or an external hard drive. You can select a backup method according to your requirements.
If you are not sure if this backup software is the one you want to use, you can first use try MiniTool ShadowMaker Trial Edition. You can experience all features by using this trial edition within 30 days.
MiniTool ShadowMaker TrialClick to Download100%Clean & Safe
Here is how to try the data backup feature of this MiniTool backup software:
Step 1: Download and install MiniTool ShadowMaker Trial Edition on your PC.
Step 2: Launch the software to enter its Home page.
Step 3: Click Backup from the left menu.
Step 4: Select the file, folder, partition, or disk you want to back up under SOURCE.
Step 5: Select the destination location where you want to save the backup under DESTINATION.
Step 6: Click the Back Up Now button to start the backup process.
The whole backup process will last for some minutes. You can do your other work while this software is running.
To safeguard your screenshots, you can use MiniTool ShadowMaker to back them up. Click to Tweet
Now, your screenshots are safe. If they get lost or deleted unexpectedly and you can’t find them in Recycle Bin, you can restore them from your backup.
This software also supports schedule and event trigger backup, and differential and incremental backup schemes.
Wrapping Things up
If you delete some important screenshots by mistake, you should not worry about them so much. You can first check Recycle Bin and restore them if they are still there. You can also use MiniTool Power Data Recovery to recover permanently deleted screenshots in Windows. This third-party data recovery is very easy to use. With only some simple clicks, you can get your lost and deleted screenshots back.
On the other hand, you can use MiniTool ShadowMaker to back up your screenshots to protect them. Should you have other related data loss issues, you can contact us via [email protected].
About The Author
Position: Columnist
Stella has been working in MiniTool Software as an English Editor for more than 8 years. Her articles mainly cover the fields of data recovery including storage media data recovery, phone data recovery, and photo recovery, videos download, partition management, and video & audio format conversions.