Unable to restore deleted files from C:OneDrive

Lee Bourgoin 0 Reputation points
2025-10-07T12:05:37.3366667+00:00

Good Morning everyone,

I hope you are well, hope someone can help me.
I am pretty computer illiterate so pardon the lingo.

Last night I attempted to free up space on my C: drive. I saw that the OneDrive folder contained 47gb and I mistakenly deleted it. It seems that it has permanently deleted everything.
The issue is I did not realize that 90% of my desktop folders were synced to OneDrive and now I have lost all my work documents and personal documents as well.

I have tried the fixes that I could find online, log in to my OneDrive web account and restore them from the recycle bin, but the issue is they are not there.
I also tried to restore to a previous date prior to me deleting the folder.
Also did not work.

I tried to run a system restore through windows, but unfortunately I didn't have system protection turned on for my C: drive.

I really hope someone has a solution for this :S

Windows for home | Windows 11 | Recovery and backup
Answer recommended by moderator
DaveM121 938.1K Reputation points Independent Advisor
2025-10-07T12:41:54.6133333+00:00

If you have deleted the OneDrive folder, that folder will have contained your Desktop, Documents and Pictures folders by default, and deleting that folder will have bypassed the Recycle Bin and directly deleted that data.

There is no undo option and a System Restore does not restore users files, it only restores System files and the registry.

Log into OneDrive in a web browser (https://onedrive.live.com/) to check if your files are still avaialble there.

And also check the Recycle Bin on OneDrive online.

If your files are not avaialble on OneDrive online for download, sadly there is no native method avaialble to recover your files, you could try some 3rd party recovery utility, but honestly, that is a lot of data that was deleted, and file recovery is very hit and miss, it is unlikely you will be able to recover all that data.

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  1. Real451T Gaming 0 Reputation points
    2026-10-11T07:06:27.0366667+00:00

    Hello, I got a little problem very similar to those written above. I've had 5gb of Data saved on my OneDrive data, and I unwittingly deleted those files from the Recycle Bin and I didn't press the delete button from the PC at all, since I only wanted to free space from my OneDrive 's account without the intention of deleting these files from my computer, so can you provide me some help please?.

    I must say that I deleted those files less than 12 hours ago.

    If anyone can provide me some good possible or accurate solution to this issue, I'm open to listen any answer in return.

    Thank you very much for reading.

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