How to Recover A Deleted Folder from External Hard Drive: Manual Methods and Software Solutions

Deleting a folder from an external hard drive either accidentally or knowingly, and later realizing that the deleted folder was very much needed, can be a stressful experience. Whether it contains important work documents, cherished memories, or crucial files, the loss of a folder can disrupt your workflow and result in significant data loss. However, still there is a hope of recovering deleted folder from external hard drive. In this article, we will guide you through manual methods and software solutions to help you recover a deleted folder from an external hard drive. By following these steps, you can increase your chances of retrieving your valuable data and restoring it to its original state.

Before we talk about the recovery of deleted folders let’s have a quick look over the possible reasons where folders from external hard drive may get deleted.  The following are some common ways where you might end up in deleting folders from your external hard drive.

  • Accidental Deletion – This is one of the most common mistakes which is made by users. People generally prefer external hard drive to take a backup of important data or transferring data from one system to another. Sometime in hurriedness users end with deletion of important folder from external drive while making attempt to delete useless folders. Since computer is a machine which follows the instructions given by user, it will delete folder even it contains valuable data.  But you can recover deleted folder by making use of our Undelete Folder tool. Here you can know how, click URL navigate to the page: https://undeletefolder.com/recover-accidentally-deleted-folder.html
  • Using Shift + Delete KeysMost of the users prefer to delete folder from external hard drive by making use of key combination shift and delete keys. If you end up with deletion of your important folder by this command then it will get delete permanently and you won’t be able to recover it from Recycle Bin. If any important folder is deleted in this incident, then you will be frustrated and will start looking for a tool to recover deleted folder. If you want to learn how to recover deleted folder from Recycle Bin within a fraction of second then go through this URL: www.undeletefolder.com/recycle-bin.html
  • Virus or malicious programThis is also a possible reason where your folder may get delete by third party tool in order to remove virus infected folder. If there is any dangerous virus or malware present on external hard drive folder, then the moment you connect it to the system for copying data to and from USB hard drive, infected folder might be deleted by anti-virus software.

Manual Methods to Recover Deleted Folder from External Hard Drive:

Method 1. Check The Recycle Bin Folder: When you delete a folder from an external hard drive connected to a Windows or macOS system, it might be temporarily stored in the Recycle Bin or Trash. Start by accessing the Recycle Bin (Windows) or Trash (Mac) and look for the deleted folder. If found, right-click on it and select "Restore" or "Put Back" to return the folder to its original location on the external hard drive.

Method 2. Use File History or Previous Versions (Windows): If you have enabled the File History feature on your Windows computer, you might be able to recover a deleted folder from an external hard drive. Right-click on the parent folder where the deleted folder was located, then select "Restore previous versions", and choose a previous version that contains the deleted folder. Copy the folder to a different location to restore it. This method relies on having created backups or enabled system restore points.

Method 3. Look for A backup: If you have a backup strategy in place, check your backup storage for a copy of the deleted folder. This can be a physical backup device, cloud storage, or another external hard drive. If a recent backup exists, restore the deleted folder from the backup to your external hard drive.

Method 4. Use Undelete Folder Software: If you are not able to get back your deleted folder/s with the above three manual methods, then the last option is to use a reliable data recovery software. Undelete Folder is the most reliable and effective recovery tool that can retrieve deleted & lost folders from external hard drive with utmost ease. The tool comes in both Windows & Mac edition (Compatible with all the versions of Operating Systems), and is available for free download. Just download the software, and follow the instructions given below and get back your deleted folder from external hard drive.

Steps to recover deleted folder from external hard drive:

Step 1: Download and install the software. After launching this tool choose "Recover Files" from start window and then choose “Recover Deleted Files" option from second screen.

Recover Deleted Folder from External Hard Drive - Main Window

Figure 1: Main Window

Step 2: Select the external hard drive from which you need to restore folders. Once the drive is selected then click on next button to starts scan process, after completion of scan all folders will be retrieved.

Recover Deleted Folder from External Hard Drive - Select External Hard Drive

Figure 2: Select External Hard Drive

Step 3: You can preview all recovered folders using preview option as shown in figure 3 once the recovery process is done.

Recover Deleted Folder from External Hard Drive - Preview Recovered Folders

Figure 3: Preview Recovered Folders

For Leopard (10.5) and
Snow Leopard (10.6) Users

For Lion (10.7), Mountain Lion (10.8),
Mavericks and Yosemite(10.10) Users