Restore Deleted Files & Folders – The Easy Way!

the Topic for this post is what started System Secrets – it’s based on the first mailing I sent out as Issue 1 of System Secrets in January 2011. It’s focus was very much our internal file-share system, but have re-worked parts of it to make it more relevant to a wider audience, but still still geared towards a corporate setting.

Sometimes, we overwrite a file we didn’t intend to, or accidentally delete a folder we still need, causing a huge headache as you realise you’ve lost a whole lot of work!

Whilst a call to your company IT Service Desk may sometimes be your only option, often you will be able to restore this yourself; instantly.

Over Written Files:

If you have over-written a saved file when you really meant to save it with another name, you do have options!

Browse to the folder where the file is saved and right click on the file. Choose ‘Properties’ and select the ‘Previous Versions’ tab

You should then see a list of previous versions of that same file. How many entries you see will depend on how often the file has changed.

You then have three options –

– View – Open the version of the file in a read-only environment

– Copy – Allows you to save the past version in a location of your choice

– Restore – Replaces the existing file with the older version!

Over Written Folders:

If you have an entire folder which has been deleted, or a large number of file deleted, you can perform the same action as above, but on a folder.

So, if you have ‘lost’ a folder, you can simply go to the parent folder, perform the same steps as above, and you can restore your sub-folder and its contents!

Important:

Doing a ‘restore’ on a parent folder will replace EVERYTHING in that folder – so unless you own that folder, you may not want to perform a ‘restore’

Instead, choose ‘View’ or ‘Copy…’ – this will allow you to access the original folder and get the missing files / folders you need without impacting other people’s files!

Notes:

– These steps will work on any network drive where the functionality has been enabled – not all file servers will have this feature, so the ‘Previous Versions’ option may not appear.

– If your Windows profile is a roaming one, then this may also work on your personal documents folders

– However, your ‘C’ or ‘D’ drives are usually specific to your PC, and this feature is not usually available for them (but you may have it on your personal PC)

Hope that helps you!

David