It has happened to all of us at some point that we access our PC, smartphone or tablet looking for a photo, a video or any other document, and we can’t find it. Despite searching through all the Data Recovery Services folders we can think of, we came to the conclusion that this document no longer exists and that we probably accidentally deleted it the last time we cleaned the device.

On many occasions, the deletion of a document does not affect us directly since, either we do not consider it important, or we can access it by other means such as a backup copy . But there are other situations in which that Data Recovery Services document is unique and its loss is irreplaceable, so knowing how to recover it can avoid more than one disappointment.

In most systems, when we delete a document, it is not actually deleted from the medium where it was stored. What the system does is mark the space it occupied as “available”. Thus, this space can be used by the system when necessary, replacing it, for example, with a new photo or a new document. 

But even if this space is marked as free, the deleted document will continue to be stored on the unit where it was located, so using the appropriate tools it could be recovered. This operation will only be possible as long as the space it occupied has not been overwritten by another document, in which case, Wikipedia recovering the deleted file might be impossible.

As long as we have a backup copy of the document that we have deleted, we can restore it and thereby regain access to its content. Depending on the operating system that we have, restoring a backup will be done in one way or another. Here’s how you can restore your backups on Android, iOS, and Windows.