How to Undelete in Windows Explorer

A Backup Article Contributed by Daniel Jones

Using the Undo to Undelete

One feature of any decent work processor is the Undo/Undelete function. It allows us to quickly roll back our previous action and correct mistakes. This has saved us all untold amounts of time and hassle. Wouldn't it be nice if we had the same feature in Windows? Some thing that would allow us to undelete deleted items? and reverse mistakes? How often have you dragged and dropped a large number of files into the incorrect folder and would like to undo the move? How about deleting a file or folder and you would like to just restore it?

Recycle Bin Allows Undelete

Of course you can always use the Recycle Bin to undelete items can't you? This is yet another nifty idea that windows has borrowed from the Apple. On the old Macintosh systems when you deleted a file or folder instead of actually deleting it, the file was moved to a Trash Can folder and were you could either retrieve (undelete) or empty it from the trash can, which truly deleted it.

When working on a PC with windows 95 or later operating system, you would do exactly the same steps, just replacing Recycle Bin for Trash Can and Restore for the undelete function to give the absolute minimum claim to originality.

The problem is, this won't help you if you've made a mistake moving a file or folder to the incorrect location. And for undelete, you need to close out of the folder you were working in, open the Recycle Bin, find the file you deleted, and then restore (undelete) it. While it's often better then re-creating the file, it's not very handy.

Using Ctrl-Z to Undo/Undelete

An extremely handy shortcut is the CTRL-Z key combination. If you have just deleted, renamed, or moved a file then this key combination will undelete, restore the name, or location to the last filed touched. Be careful though, if you held down the shift key when you deleted (which makes things delete much faster) then the undelete won't work.

The reason that holding the shift key is so fast is that rather then changing the location of the files, it removes the reference to it from the file system. This is very fast but blocks all means of restoring the files without third party file undelete/recovery software.

Undelete from the Menu

An alternative method to undelete that is often available is to go to the File menu. Often, but not always, the Undelete, Rename, or Undo option is available right from this menu. The Microsoft designers who built Windows do pride themselves in allowing you to do any task several ways. And I agree with them that this is a good thing.