How to easily recover lost or deleted files with Recuva

Are you worried because you’ve accidentally deleted an important file or archive from your computer or any other storage device? Relax, it still possible to get it all or at least part of it back with Recuva. Using data recovery software like Recuva, you have big chances to have your lost files back.

In this article, you will learn how to recover deleted or lost files using Recuva, one of the most popular and free programs to recover deleted and lost files from storage devices and formatted or lost partitions on windows and other platforms.

Recuva really is great, I’ve used it several times and it works perfectly with almost all of the most used storage devices – HD’s, flash drives, Rewritable CD/DVD’s, SD cards and even on iPod. It is very simple and clean, super user friendly, presents absolutely no issues and most of all it seemed to be very efficient from my experience – you can get your stuff back in no time.

How to recover lost or deleted files on windows using Recuva:

1 – Preparation

Download Recuva Portable version and extract the ZIP compressed file to a folder and then double click on the file Recuva.exe. If you are using Recuva on 64 bits windows installation, click on Recuva64.exe.

2 – Search the deleted file


When launching it, Recuva will open an assistant that will guide you through all the deleted files recovery process on the storage device of your choosing – computer hard drive, flash drive, SD card, etc. Just click “Next” to continue.

In the following window, choose the type of file or archive you want to recover. You can search for all sort of files or just search for a specific one, it can be an image, music, document, video or compressed ZIP or Rar file.

Now tell Recuva where to search for your deleted or lost file. It can search the whole computer or portable device (Flash drives, SD cards or external HD’s), in the Documents folder or in any other specific folder of your choice.

The best option is always choosing a specific file location to allow Recuva search for the lost files, because it makes easier for Recuva to find and restore your lost file, but case you no longer remember where exactly were located the lost or deleted file just click the “I’m not sure” option. 

After choosing your best option to help Recuva search your file from the place it was located before. You will see the above window. Just click the “Start” button to start the search for the lost file on the previously specified location. If it can’t find the lost file according to your option, and you are 100% sure you chose the best location file option. Just repeat the previous steps and mark the option “Enable Deep Scan” to make a deep verification – which usually works. 

3 – Recovering the lost or deleted files

Once the verification is done, it will show the found deleted files that can be restored. Mark the found files boxes you want restore, and then click “Recover”.

Next, select where you want to save the files. Always save your files in a different location and not in the same where they were recovered from. For example, you can save the found and recovered hard drive files on a flash or internal hard drive.

Using the “Deep Scan” mode on Recuva

If you didn’t succeed using the default recover mode, you can always try to recover your deleted files on the “Deep Scan” mode. As it says “deep”, that’s exactly what it does, a deep verification in order to find your lost file.

Open Recuva and then click “Next” in the assistant window.

Choose the file you want to recover.

Select the location where Recuva should search for the deleted file.

Mark the option “Enable Deep Scan” to make a deep verification and then click “Start”








Note that “Deep Scan” really makes a deep verification. Because of that, depending on the size of your storage device being analyzed, the verification may even take hours to be completed.
After finishing the deep verification, mark the deleted file box that you want recover, click the button “Recover” and select the location where you want to save the marked files.

In conclusion, if you didn’t succeed using Recuva, there are many other excellent and free recovery software available out there just to help you get your lost files back. Try my top 10 list of free data recovery software, it might help you know where to start from.

That’s it!