[4 Ways] How to Restore Permanently Deleted Files in Windows 8/8.1

It's easy to accidentally delete a file you want, and it's very easy. You may have accidentally over-selected a file or two, or you may have happened to hit the delete button at the wrong moment. But there's no need to panic. Deleting a file does not mean that the file is gone forever. In this article, we will cover 4 tested ways to recover deleted files in Windows 8/8.1.

If you are wondering how to recover deleted files in Windows 8, we have good news - there are 4 methods available for you. It doesn't matter if you deleted them by mistake or emptied the Recycle Bin. Even if you press Shift-Delete to bypass the Recycle Bin, you can also recover permanently deleted files.

You'll be happy to know that even if you've made changes to a file and want to access a previous version, you can do so with Window's File History Rollback feature. Read on and we will show you how to restore permanently deleted files in Windows 8/8.1.  

How to recover permanently deleted files in Windows 8/8.1 [4 Ways]

Please refer to the 4 effective methods provided here to recover deleted files on Windows 8 for free, including Recycle Bin, File History, third-party data recovery software, and Windows File Recovery.

Method 1. Recover Deleted Files on Windows 8 from Recycle Bin

If you accidentally delete a file or just change your mind about deleting it, the first place you should go is to the Recycle Bin. This handy location is a temporary repository for deleted files and gives you a chance to recover files you decide to keep.

You can find the Recycle Bin on your desktop, or if you can't see the icon, you can open Explorer to find it. Double-click the desktop icon to open the Recycle Bin, or open Explorer from the taskbar or Start screen and click the Recycle Bin icon in the left navigation pane.

Locate the target file to be recovered, right-click on it, and select “Recover” from the menu that appears.

Method 2. Restore deleted files using File History

The Recycle Bin isn't the only option available in Windows 8 for recovering deleted files, there's also a useful feature called File History (which replaced the Previous Versions feature in earlier versions of Windows).

While it's not foolproof (and will only work if you manually enable it), it gives you a second chance to recover files you've deleted or that you forgot to save.

• Click the Start button, type File History, and then click on the search result labeled Restore files using File History.

• In the search box, type the name of the file you want to recover.

• Once you have found the file of interest, use the left and right arrows to browse the available versions of the file.

• To restore a file to its original location, select the file and click Restore. To restore the file to another location, right-click on the file, select “Restore to” and then select the folder you want to use. 

Way 3. Recover the deleted/lost files in Windows 8 via data recovery software

Without backups, how to recover deleted files from Recycle Bin after emptying? At the moment, you’d better use a third-party tool because data recovery tools can exempt you from complex backups and provide the biggest data recovery potential for you.

Here comes a highly-praised data recovery tool, MyRecover. Its established reputation rests on its powerful features and user-friendliness design.

Step 1. After running the tool, hover the mouse over the drive, and click Scan.

Step 2. Search or wait to see all the deleted and other missing files after scanning.

Step 3. Go to the Deleted files/Other missing files folder, and select your desired files. Then click the “Recover x files” button and save the restored files in a new location.

Way 4. How to restore permanently deleted files in Windows 8 using the command

If you want to recover deleted files from Recycle Bin without software, you could try Microsoft’s official command-line app to restore data permanently emptied from Recycle Bin by using command prompts.

Microsoft released a command-line utility-Windows File Recovery in 2020 to help users recover deleted or lost files even emptied from Recycle Bin. It only supports Windows 10 2004 and later. However, it doesn't have a user graphic interface., which means you need to input specific CMD to recover deleted files. 

There are four different modes to use Windows File Recovery correctly: Regular, Extensive, Segment, and Signature. If you want to recover the files deleted from Recycle Bin, you need to recall the previously saved location and then use the command. The following is the basic command format of Windows File Recovery.

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

Step 1. Type “Microsoft Store” in the search box and open it. And then find “Windows File Recovery” and click “Get”.

Step 2. After installing Windows File Recovery on your computer, type Windows File Recovery in the search box and select “Run as administrator”.

*View the solutions of “WinFR requires admin privileges to run.”

Step 3. Right-click the drive that saved the deleted files and select “Properties” to check the file system.

Step 4. There are some common switches to use. You can check them and their description in the following chart. To find more switches in the Windows File Recovery tutorial. 

Step 5. For example, if you want to recover a zip file but don’t know the detailed name from C: drive to E: drive, you could input the following command:

winfr C: E: /regular /n \C:\Recycler\*.zip

*View the solutions of "Winfr.exe is not recognized as an internal or external command".

Relevant Q&A for data recovery

This tutorial focuses on how to restore permanently deleted files in Windows 8. You’d better look through the above three methods before making a wiser decision to find lost files in Windows 8 computers. Besides, there’re some relevant tips for you.