Where Do Permanently Deleted Files Go In Computers?
When you delete files from your computer they normally go to the recycle bin. From the recycle bin, you can then ‘permanently delete’ the file. However, the files haven’t really been deleted from the hard drive.
The files are now stored in the depths of your hard drive but the system has marked the space the files occupy as ready to overwrite. The system marks these files as inaccessible. While you can’t see these files from File Explorer, they can still be recovered using your OS recovery features or by using special software.
For instance, here is a guide to recover deleted files in Windows 10.
Open the folder where the file was located before you send it to the recycle bin.
Right click and on the pop up menu click on ‘History’.
Click ‘Previous’.
Select the file you want to recover and left-click to ‘Restore’.
However, for this to work you have to act immediately. Otherwise the system will overwrite the deleted file with new data.