Deleted does not always mean gone, but how much you can get back depends on your drive.
You empty the Recycle Bin, or press Shift+Delete by mistake, and a second later the panic hits. An important document, a month of photos or a client deliverable is suddenly missing.
The good news is that deleted rarely means gone for good. When you delete a file on Windows 10 or 11, the operating system does not instantly wipe the data. It removes the file’s entry from the file system table and marks those clusters as available space. The raw data stays where it was until new data is written over it.
To see how this works in practice, I ran a recovery test with MyRecover on one of my own drives. Below is an honest breakdown of the steps, my results, the limitations, and the free options you should try first.
Table of Contents
- 1. Why Deleted Files Disappear
- 2. Before You Start: HDD vs SSD, TRIM and Overwriting
- 3. Free Windows Options to Try First
- 4. Recovery Software I Tested: MyRecover
- 5. How to Recover Deleted Files with MyRecover (Step by Step)
- 6. My Test Results
- 7. Tips for Better Results
- 8. Pros and Cons of MyRecover
- 9. Conclusion
1. Why Deleted Files Disappear
There are a few common reasons files go missing:
- Accidental deletion: a slip of Shift+Delete, a wrong drag-and-drop, or a rushed “Yes” to a delete prompt sends files straight past the Recycle Bin.
- Recycle Bin bypass or overflow: items on external drives and files too large for the bin skip it entirely, so there is nothing to restore from.
- System or app cleanup: Windows Storage Sense, disk cleanup tools and some third-party cleaners can quietly purge files you wanted to keep.
- Formatting and corruption: a quick format or a corrupted file system can make a whole drive look empty even though most of the data is still there.
The most important rule: the moment you notice a loss, stop saving anything new to that drive. Every download or installation can overwrite the exact sectors holding your missing files.
2. Before You Start: HDD vs SSD, TRIM and Overwriting
The biggest factor in whether recovery works is the type of drive the files were on.
- HDD (hard disk drive): deleted data stays on the magnetic platters until something overwrites it, so recovery software has a good chance if you act quickly.
- SSD (solid state drive): if TRIM has run, the drive wipes deleted blocks in the background to keep performance up. On an SSD, especially the C: drive, recovery is often impossible after that. A quick format of an SSD can have a similar effect.
Never install recovery software on the drive that lost the files. The installation itself can overwrite deleted data. Install it on a different, healthy drive or PC.
3. Free Windows Options to Try First
Before using any third-party tool to recover deleted files, check what Windows already gives you:
- Recycle Bin: open it first and restore the file. This does not help if the file was deleted with Shift+Delete.
- File History / Previous Versions: if it was enabled, right-click the folder where the file used to be, choose Restore previous versions, and look for an older snapshot. On Windows 11 you may need to click Show more options first.
- Cloud backup: check the recycle bin in OneDrive, Google Drive or Dropbox if the folder was synced.
- Windows File Recovery: A free command-line tool from Microsoft (installed from the Microsoft Store, for Windows 10 version 2004 or later and Windows 11), suitable if you are comfortable with terminal commands.
4. Recovery Software I Tested: MyRecover
MyRecover is a Windows data recovery program with a wizard-style interface. In the screenshots below you can see its recovery scenarios in the left menu: Deleted Files Recovery, Recycle Bin Recovery, USB/SD Card Recovery, Format Recovery and more.
What I found
- File types: according to MyRecover, it supports 1,000+ file types, including Office documents, photos, video and RAW camera formats. I did not test every format.
- Free tier: the free version limits recovery to 500 MB in total. That is enough to check whether your files are intact, but not enough for large folders or videos.
- Scan speed: Quick Scan on Local Disk (D:) (310GB) finished in a few seconds. Deep Scan reads raw sectors instead of the file table, so it takes much longer and is meant for formatted or older deletions.
- Preview: a built-in preview lets you check a file before recovering it.
5. How to Recover Deleted Files with MyRecover (Step by Step)
Important: if the files were on an SD card, connect it with a dedicated card reader rather than a phone or camera cable. Never save recovered files to the same drive you are recovering from.
To see how MyRecover performs in a real-world scenario, I ran a hands-on test on an HDD (mechanical hard drive). I did not test an SSD, so the SSD points in this article come from how TRIM works, not from my own results.
My Test Setup:
- Test sample: A test folder containing 30 sample files, mostly PNG images plus other formats such as JPG, MP4, XLSX, and web files (HTML, XML, JS, CSS, PHP, MJS).
- Execution: I deleted the folder using Shift + Delete on Drive D: (HDD) to bypass the Recycle Bin completely.
- Precaution: MyRecover was installed on Drive C: (an SSD), while the test files were placed on Drive D: (HDD) to avoid overwriting data during installation. Recovered files were saved to Drive E:, a different drive from the one scanned. (My Windows shows drive names in German, such as “Lokaler Datenträger”, which this article calls “Local Disk”).
Step 1: Install on a different drive and connect the affected one
Download and install MyRecover on a healthy drive or a separate PC, not on the drive that lost the files. If the missing data is on an external disk, USB stick or SD card, connect it to that computer.
Step 2: Select the drive and scan
Open MyRecover, choose Deleted Files Recovery in the left menu, hover over the drive that held your files (here, Drive D:) and click Scan. Quick Scan runs first. If your files are not found, run Deep Scan for older or formatted deletions.
Step 3: Filter and preview the results
Use the left panel to filter by path or type (Images, Documents, Videos and so on) or use the search box. Tick the folders or files you want. Always preview before recovering: a filename showing up in the results does not guarantee the file is intact, because it may be partly overwritten and fail to open. Here, I can preview png, jpg, mp4, xlsx, htm, html, xml, js, css, php, but not mjs files.
Step 4: Save to a different drive
Click Recover and choose a destination folder on a different drive from the one you scanned. In my test I saved to Local Disk (E:). A small selection recovers quickly. You can click Browse to go to the destination to check your recovered files after recovering.
6. My Test Results
Here is a summary of what happened in my test:
| Item | What I saw |
|---|---|
| Drive scanned | Local Disk (D:), 310GB, drive type: HDD |
| Quick Scan result | The scan-complete window reported 300,271 files (134 GB) found |
| Quick Scan time | A few seconds |
| Files selected for recovery | 30 files (7.40 MB), within the 500 MB free limit |
| Saved to | Local Disk (E:), a different drive from the one scanned |
| Files that opened correctly | png, jpg, mp4, xlsx, htm, html, xml, js, css, php |
| Files that failed or were corrupted | mjs (the recovery window reported 30 files recovered, but these did not preview or open correctly) |
7. Tips for Better Results
- Use Deep Scan for files lost through formatting or corruption. It takes longer but reaches sectors a quick pass misses.
- Use the Type and Path filters to shrink a huge result list to just what you need.
- Preview first so you do not spend your free 500 MB on files that will not open.
- If you regularly recover large amounts of data, the Pro edition removes the 500 MB cap.
8. Pros and Cons of MyRecover
Pros
- Simple wizard-style interface that needs no technical background.
- Separate recovery scenarios (deleted files, Recycle Bin, USB/SD card, format) make it easy to pick the right one.
- Preview function to check files before recovering.
Cons
- The 500 MB free limit is restrictive for photos, videos or large folders.
- Deep Scan can take a long time, depending on the drive size.
- It cannot recover data that has been overwritten or wiped by SSD TRIM, and no software can.
9. Conclusion
Data recovery is not magic. It depends on whether the storage sectors have been overwritten. If you lose files, first check the Recycle Bin, File History and your cloud backups. If that fails, stop writing to the drive, install recovery software on a different drive, run a scan with the free version to check recoverability, and always restore to a separate location.
MyRecover was easy to use in my test and its preview feature is useful, but the free limit and the HDD/SSD difference are worth knowing before you start.
Last tested: 2026/9/29
