Did you just clean up your computer and emptied the recycle bin, but now you realize that important files were inside? Do not worry ! There are methods to recover your data. In this article, we are going to show you how to recover lost files even after you empty the Recycle Bin.
Rest assured, you are probably not the only one to whom it happens to empty the trash of his computer and then remember that it contained files (document, image, video, etc.) that you would have liked to recover . But fortunately, this process is reversible and in the following lines, we will explain to you step by step how to proceed.
The recycle bin, a temporary storage area
You do use the wastebasket in your office to temporarily store your paper waste in order to keep your workspace clean and organized! Well, the same goes for the computer’s recycle bin. This is where files and folders are temporarily stored when they are deleted from the device. These are not immediately erased from the hard drive. Instead, they’re moved to the Trash, giving you the chance to recover them if they were accidentally deleted.
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It is also recommended to regularly empty the recycle bin of your computer. and for good reason, it frees up space on the hard drive. If this action is not performed, the more files you accumulate (particularly large files) in the recycle bin, the slower your computer’s system will be. Regularly emptying the Trash frees up disk space and improve the performance of your machine. It can also help you prevent errors and crashes in your device. And if you are one of those who like to save time, you have the option of permanently deleting your files without going through the trash box. To do this, just hold down the Shift key while pressing the Delete key for Windows, or hold down the Option key and go to File > Delete Immediately from the menu bar for MacOS.
Recycle Bin full can cause bugs to your computer – Source: spm
Before emptying your computer’s recycle bin, remember to quickly review the files stored thereto restore the ones you want to recover to their original location. The handling is very simple:
- Open the trash;
- Select the files or folders you want to restore;
- Click the “Restore” or “Restore Selected Items” button.
However, if you find yourself faced with an emptied trash and deleted files to recover, know that it is still possible… under certain conditions.

Remember to regularly empty the trash on your computer to keep it in good working order – Source: spm
Where are the files deleted from the Recycle Bin?
What you need to know is that regardless of the type of your operating system (Windows or MacOS), the principle remains the same. The storage space you free up after deleting files, although marked ‘available’ and therefore usable, still keeps the original files intact as long as the space they occupied has not been overwritten by new ones. data. This is what makes Recycle Bin recovery possible through dedicated software for this purpose, but in a relatively limited time, as it depends on how much empty space you have on your storage device. Indeed, if you have only a few gigabytes (GB) of storage space, there is a greater chance that an application will overwrite your files than if you have a bigger space. Therefore, before starting the procedure to recover your files, take care to close all non-essential applications that could generate new data.
Whether you have a Mac or a Windows computer (regardless of the version of the windows operating system), simple solutions exist to allow you to recover deleted items after you have emptied the Trash, whether you are a novice or an experienced user.
Several tools give you the opportunity to achieve this. One of them is theDisk Drill data recovery software, ranked among the best by our fellow tech news specialists phonandroid.com or the newspaper Le Parisien. Originally intended for MacOS, Disk Drill is now available on Windows in French and presents an easy to use interface, including for beginners. This software, which you can find in three versions (Free, Pro and Enterprise), will allow you to recover up to 500 MB of data for free. Beyond that, you will need to subscribe to a paid plan.

You have the option to restore your deleted files even after emptying the Trash. Source: spm
How to use Disk Drill software to restore permanently deleted items from Recycle Bin on your Windows computer?
Recovering your files with Disk Drill will be done in five (5) steps that will only take you a few minutes:
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- Download and install Disk Drill for Windows.
- Launch the software then select the storage device (hard drive) containing the lost data and finally, launch the scan
- Select files to recover from scan results
- Specify recovery directory
- Start the recovery process.
How to use Disk Drill software to restore permanently deleted items from Trash on Mac?
The procedure for recovering your deleted files on MacOS is almost similar to that on Windows and is also carried out in a few steps. However, it is necessary to have Mac OS X 10.8.5 or a more recent version.
- Download and install Disk Drill for MacOS and move it to your ‘Applications’ folder.
- Launch the software and then allow it to scan your hard drive.
- Select from the list of disks that appears in the window the one on which you want to recover the deleted files, then click on the “Restore” button.
As we have just seen, you have the possibility of recovering files that you have deleted from the recycle bin of your computer (Windows or MacOs), and that you thought you had definitively lost, thanks to recovery software. Several options are available to you, but Disk Drill has the advantage of having an intuitive and easy to understand interface without being a computer whiz. It also supports many formats and also includes many other features that are just as useful to anyone with a computer. We hope, dear readers, that this information will be useful to you and that you will no longer have to worry about files that you have accidentally deleted.
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