How to Recover Deleted Files on Windows 11: What Each Delete Method Leaves in the Recycle Bin (Tested), Previous Versions and Windows File Recovery

What I tested

Test machine: Windows 11 Home (build 26300). In a temporary folder I created test files and deleted each one a different way: sent to the Recycle Bin (what the Delete key does), deleted permanently (what Shift+Delete does), Command Prompt del, PowerShell Remove-Item, and a whole folder sent to the Recycle Bin. Then I listed the Recycle Bin and restored whatever was there. I also read the Recycle Bin properties, Storage Sense, File History and TRIM settings. Only my test files were touched, and they were removed afterwards.

The methods themselves come from Microsoft's support articles: Windows File Recovery, Backup and restore with File History, Restore deleted files or folders in OneDrive, Manage drive space with Storage Sense and System Restore.

Step 1: the Recycle Bin — and what skips it

To restore, open the Recycle Bin, right-click the file and choose Restore; it goes back to the folder it was deleted from. The three methods that skipped the bin are also how scripts, installers and clean-up tools usually delete files, so an empty Recycle Bin after a script or a command is expected — go to Step 3 or 4.

Size limit and the remove-immediately option

Right-click the Recycle Bin on the desktop and choose Properties to see a maximum size for each drive. On this PC every drive was set to 5–6% of its capacity (C:, 916 GB, had 48,935 MB). The same window has an option to remove files immediately instead of moving them to the Recycle Bin. If your Recycle Bin is always empty, check that option first — with it selected, even the Delete key bypasses the bin.

Storage Sense can empty it for you

Microsoft's Storage Sense article says the feature is off by default, but Windows may turn it on when the disk is low on space, and that Recycle Bin content will be deleted after some time. On this PC it was on, under Settings > System > Storage > Storage Sense, with Delete files in my recycle bin if they have been there for over: set to 30 days, marked as the default, and Storage Sense set to run when free disk space is low (also the default). A file deleted more than a month ago may simply be gone from the bin; set that option to Never if you want the bin to keep files.

Step 2: OneDrive's recycle bin

If the file was in OneDrive (including Desktop or Documents backed up to OneDrive), open OneDrive on the web and check Recycle bin. Microsoft's article says items are deleted automatically after 30 days for personal accounts, and after 93 days for work or school accounts unless the administrator changed it. It also notes that files deleted in the cloud don't show up in your computer's Recycle Bin, so an empty PC bin is not the end for OneDrive files.

Step 3: Restore previous versions (only if File History was on)

1. 1In File Explorer, go to the folder that used to contain the file.
2. 2Right-click the folder and choose Restore previous versions.
3. 3Pick a version of the folder from before the deletion — if you deleted it today, yesterday's version should contain it.
4. 4Use Open to look inside first, then Restore to… to save it somewhere else.

Microsoft warns that plain Restore replaces the current version and can't be undone, which is why restoring to a different location is the safer choice. This only works if File History (an automatic backup, usually to an external drive) was set up before the file was deleted. This PC had never been configured for it — there was no File History configuration folder — so its Previous Versions route would have been empty. I could not list restore points or shadow copies because that needs administrator rights.

Step 4: Windows File Recovery (winfr)

When the file is in no recycle bin and there is no backup, Microsoft's own tool is Windows File Recovery: a Command Prompt app in the Microsoft Store (publisher Microsoft Corporation; the listing says Windows 10 2004 and later, and the Store page offers it as a free download). After installing it, run it from the Start menu and type a command in this form:

winfr source-drive: destination-drive: [/mode] [/switches]

winfr C: E: /regular /n \Users\<username>\Documents\
winfr C: E: /regular /n *.pdf /n *.docx
winfr E: C: /extensive /n *invoice*

• The source and destination must be different drives. With only one drive, recover to a USB stick or external disk. A Recovery_<date and time> folder is created there.
• Regular mode is for files deleted recently from an NTFS drive. Extensive mode is for files deleted a while ago, after formatting, from a corrupted disk, or from FAT/exFAT (SD cards, small USB sticks). If unsure, start with Regular.
• Use /n with a path or a type such as *.pdf; searching all of C: also returns lots of system files.
• Cloud storage and network shares are not supported.

I did not install or run it on this PC, so there is no recovery result here. What Microsoft does make clear is how to improve the odds: after losing a file, use the computer as little as possible, because the space it occupied is marked free and new files can overwrite it — the article adds that this is especially true on SSDs. The Store listing itself describes SSD recovery as limited by TRIM. This PC's C: drive is an NVMe SSD and fsutil behavior query DisableDeleteNotify reported 0, "Allows TRIM operations to be sent to the storage device", so for files deleted long ago on an SSD, keep expectations low.

Summary

The easiest recovery is the one prepared in advance: make sure the remove-immediately option is off, decide how long Storage Sense keeps the bin, and turn on File History or OneDrive backup for the folders that matter.

FAQ