How to Recover Deleted Files in Windows 11 (Microsoft’s Free Tool, One Command)

If you deleted a file in Windows 11 and it is not in the Recycle Bin, stop using that drive, check the folder’s Previous Versions tab and the OneDrive website’s recycle bin, then install Microsoft’s free Windows File Recovery from the Microsoft Store and run one command, such as winfr D: C: /regular /n \Photos\. The source and destination drives must be different, and your files come back in a Recovery folder on the destination drive.

Applies to: Windows 11 (23H2, 24H2, 25H2) and Windows 10 (22H2) | Last updated: August 28, 2026

Key Takeaways

• Windows does not wipe a deleted file’s data. It marks the space as free, so the file is recoverable until something new is written over it. Every download, install and save on that drive lowers the odds, which is why step one is to stop using it.
• A file skips the Recycle Bin when you delete it with Shift + Delete, when it is too big for the bin, when it lives on a USB stick or a network drive, and when Storage Sense empties the bin on its own. “Not in the Recycle Bin” does not mean gone.
• Windows File Recovery is Microsoft’s own free recovery tool, installed from the Microsoft Store. It is a command line app, but the whole job is one line: winfr D: C: /regular /n \Photos\.
• The source drive and the destination drive must be different. Writing recovered files back onto the drive they came from is how you overwrite the rest of them.
• If a recovered file will not open, part of it was already overwritten and no tool fixes that. If the drive clicks, keeps disappearing from This PC, or asks to be formatted, stop scanning it and hand it to a data recovery shop.

Quick Steps

1. Stop saving, downloading or installing anything on the drive the file was on.
2. Open the Recycle Bin. If the file is there, right-click it and restore it.
3. Right-click the folder the file was in > Properties > Previous Versions. If an older version of the folder is listed, open it and copy the file out.
4. If that folder syncs to OneDrive, sign in at the OneDrive website, open its Recycle bin, tick the file and click Restore.
5. Install Windows File Recovery from the Microsoft Store, open it from the Start menu, and click Yes on the permission prompt.
6. Run winfr <source>: <destination>: /regular /n \Folder\ with two different drive letters, press Enter, then Y.
7. Open the Recovery folder (named with the date and time) on the destination drive and check your files.
8. Nothing found, or the file was on a USB stick or memory card? Run the same command again with /extensive in place of /regular.

In This Guide

• Stop using the drive first, the one thing that decides whether any of this works.
• The Recycle Bin, and the four reasons your file is not in it.
• Previous Versions, File History and restore points.
• The OneDrive recycle bin online, about a month of grace on a Microsoft account.
• Windows File Recovery, Microsoft’s free tool, one command, explained piece by piece.
• PhotoRec, the free alternative with a window and buttons.
• When recovery fails, files that will not open, and drives that are dying.

Stop Using the Drive First (This Decides Whether Any of It Works)

When Windows deletes a file, it does not wipe the data. It marks the space that file was using as free, and the actual bytes stay on the drive until something new gets written over them. Once that happens, no tool brings the file back. So the whole job is getting to the file before the drive reuses that space.

That is why the first step is to stop using that drive as much as you can. Microsoft’s own page for its Windows File Recovery tool puts it plainly: to increase your chances of recovering a file, minimize or avoid using your computer. Every download, every install and every autosave is a write, and any one of them can land on top of your file.

It also means this: do not install a pile of recovery tools onto the drive the file was on. Each install is exactly the kind of write you are trying to avoid. Pick one tool, put it on a different drive if you can, and use it once.

Tip: If the file was on C:, time matters more, because Windows itself writes to C: constantly in the background. Plug in a USB stick or an external drive and use that as the place the recovered files go.

Check the Recycle Bin, and Why the File Might Not Be There

Start with the obvious one. Open the Recycle Bin on the desktop, and if your file is in there, right-click it and restore it. It goes straight back to the folder it came from. If the bin icon is not on your desktop at all, Microsoft’s short page on finding the Recycle Bin in Windows shows where it went.

The reason it might not be there is that not every delete goes through the bin. Shift + Delete skips it and removes the file straight away. A file that is too big for the bin gets deleted outright. Files on USB sticks and network drives usually skip the bin too. And Storage Sense, which is on by default, can empty the bin on its own without you touching it.

None of those mean the data is gone. They only mean you skipped the easy step, and the file is now in the same position as any other deleted file: still on the drive until something overwrites it. If Storage Sense emptying the bin behind your back bothers you, it is one of the toggles in Winhance, my free Windows enhancement utility.

Check Previous Versions (File History and Restore Points)

Next, check whether Windows was keeping a copy for you. Right-click the folder the file used to be in, choose Properties, and open the Previous Versions tab. If File History was switched on, or a restore point covers that folder, you will see older versions of the folder listed here, and you can open one and pull the file out of it.

I will be honest with you: for most people this tab is empty. File History is off unless you went and set it up, and Windows does not switch it on for you. Check it anyway, because it takes ten seconds, and when it does have something it is the cleanest recovery there is. You get the original file, with its original name, from before you deleted it.

Check the OneDrive Recycle Bin Online

If the folder is one that OneDrive syncs, which on a Microsoft account is often your Desktop, Documents and Pictures, the file may still be sitting in OneDrive’s own recycle bin. Windows Backup syncs the folders you choose to your OneDrive account, and a lot of people have that switched on without remembering they ever agreed to it.

Go to the OneDrive website, sign in, and open the Recycle bin from the menu. On a personal account it keeps what you deleted for 30 days, so about a month, and a work or school account keeps it for 93. Tick the file, click Restore, and OneDrive syncs it back down to the folder on your PC.

Note: This only helps for folders OneDrive was actually syncing. If you would rather OneDrive did not have hold of those folders at all, my guide on turning off OneDrive on Windows 11 covers stopping it from taking over your folders and what happens to your files when you do.

Recover the File With Windows File Recovery (One Command)

If none of that found it, this is the real answer. Microsoft has a free tool called Windows File Recovery in the Microsoft Store. Search the Store for it and install it. Nothing to download from a third-party site, nothing bundled in, and no paywall when it finds your files.

It is a command line app, and I know that puts people off. But honestly, the whole job is one line, and I am going to take you through every piece of it. Open it from the Start menu, click Yes on the permission prompt, and you get a window with the command layout printed at the top.

The Command, Piece by Piece

The command starts with winfr, then the letter of the drive the file was on, then the letter of the drive to save the recovered files to. Those two have to be different drives. The tool insists on it, and for good reason: writing recovered files back onto the same drive is how you overwrite the rest of them. In my case the files were on my D: drive and I saved them to C:. If your files were on C:, plug in a USB stick or an external drive and save to that.

Then you add the mode. /regular is the quick scan, for an NTFS drive where the file was deleted recently, which covers most internal drives. Then /n narrows the search to a folder, so for me that was /n \Photos\. You can add a second /n to filter by file type, such as /n *.pdf, and I would, because scanning a whole drive for everything turns up a ton of files you do not want.

So the command I ran looks like this:

winfr D: C: /regular /n \Photos\ /n *.pdf

And if your file was in your Documents folder on C:, with a USB stick showing up as E:, the folder path is your user folder followed by Documents:

winfr C: E: /regular /n \Users\<username>\Documents\

Press Enter, confirm with Y, and let it run. When it is done, it tells you how many files it recovered and offers to open them. Say yes, and you land in a folder called Recovery with the date and time in the name, on the drive you picked, with your files inside. Mine opened fine. Microsoft’s Windows File Recovery page has more example commands if your case is different from these two.

When to Use /extensive Instead

If a regular scan finds nothing, run it again with /extensive in place of /regular. Use extensive from the start if the file was on a USB stick or a memory card, which are usually FAT or exFAT rather than NTFS, or if the file was deleted a while ago. Microsoft’s own table says the same: NTFS and deleted recently means regular; NTFS and deleted a while ago, a formatted drive, a corrupted disk, or any FAT or exFAT drive means extensive.

winfr D: C: /extensive /n \Photos\

Extensive digs deeper and takes longer, so give it time. Everything else about the command stays the same, including the rule that the two drive letters must be different.

PhotoRec: the Free Alternative With a Window and Buttons

If you would rather have a window with buttons than a command line, PhotoRec, the free and open source recovery tool from my older video, still works. It ignores the file system entirely and scans the raw sectors of the disk for known file signatures, which is why it can pull files back from a quick-formatted drive as well as an emptied bin.

PhotoRec comes bundled with TestDisk in one download. Grab the Windows package, extract the zip somewhere that is not the drive you are recovering from, and run qphotorec_win.exe, which is the graphical version. Nothing installs, so a USB stick is a fine place to run it from.

When it opens, select the whole disk that held the deleted files. If you have more than one drive, pick it out by size.

Then click File Formats, hit Reset to clear the list, and tick only the types you are after, such as jpg for photos or pdf and docx for documents. By default PhotoRec recovers every format it knows, which makes the scan slow and buries your files under thousands you do not want.

Set the destination to a folder on a different drive, same rule as winfr, and click Search. Files are written to the destination as the scan runs, so you can start looking through them before it finishes.

Tip: PhotoRec cannot keep the original file names. Recovered files are named by type and a running number, so sorting the recovery folder by date or opening thumbnails is how you find the ones you wanted. That is the main reason I now reach for Windows File Recovery first.

When Recovery Fails: Files That Will Not Open, and Drives That Are Dying

The Files Came Back but Will Not Open

This comes up a lot, so I want to be straight about it. If a recovered file will not open, or a photo opens as half an image, that is the overwriting problem from the top of this guide. Part of the file was already gone before the scan started, because something else was written over that piece of the drive. No tool fixes that, no matter what its website promises. The only defence is the boring one: stop using the drive the moment you notice the file is missing.

The Drive Is Clicking, Disappearing, or Asking to Be Formatted

If the drive is making a clicking noise, keeps disappearing from This PC, or Windows keeps asking to format it, stop scanning it. Every scan is more wear on a drive that is busy failing, and a recovery scan reads the whole thing end to end. That is the point where you hand it to a data recovery shop rather than lose everything trying to save a bit of money.

If you want to see what the drive is reporting about its own health before you make that call, my guide on testing a hard drive or SSD for errors shows how to read the SMART status in CrystalDiskInfo. Skip the extended test on a drive that is already making noise.

And once your files are back, set up the thing that would have made this guide unnecessary. Windows Backup syncing your folders to OneDrive, or File History to an external drive, means the next accidental delete is a 30-second restore instead of an afternoon with a recovery tool.

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Frequently Asked Questions

Can I recover files I deleted with Shift + Delete in Windows 11?

Yes. Shift + Delete skips the Recycle Bin, but the file’s data is still on the drive until something overwrites it. Check the folder’s Previous Versions tab and the OneDrive recycle bin first, then run Windows File Recovery with the /regular mode, saving to a different drive.

Why does Windows File Recovery say the source and destination drives must be different?

Because writing recovered files onto the drive you are recovering from can overwrite the deleted data you have not recovered yet. Microsoft built that rule into the tool. If your files were on C:, plug in a USB stick or an external drive and use its letter as the destination.

Should I use /regular or /extensive?

Use /regular for an NTFS drive where the file was deleted recently, which is most internal drives. Use /extensive for a USB stick or memory card (usually FAT or exFAT), a file deleted a while ago, a formatted drive, or when regular found nothing. Extensive takes longer, so try regular first on an internal drive.

Can I recover deleted files from a USB stick or SD card?

Yes. Files deleted from a USB stick or memory card usually skip the Recycle Bin, so go straight to Windows File Recovery with the /extensive mode, because those cards are normally FAT or exFAT. Use the stick’s letter as the source and your C: drive, or another stick, as the destination.

Does this work on Windows 10 as well?

The Recycle Bin, Previous Versions and OneDrive steps are the same on Windows 10 (22H2), and PhotoRec runs on both. Windows File Recovery is a Microsoft Store app, and I ran it on Windows 11 for this guide, so on Windows 10 check the Store listing supports your build before you rely on it.