Microsoft launches Windows File Recovery app to help recover deleted data

Microsoft has just made a new free data recovery application available to the public, called Windows File Recovery. Using this, we can recover files that have been previously deleted. The app is compatible to recover documents, photos, and videos, among others. The new Windows File Recovery launched by Microsoft is already available on the Microsoft Store for free download.

Windows File Recovery features

Windows File Recovery Tool is a command-line tool that can help you recover photos, documents, videos, etc. The app can even recover data from a connected camera or SD card but doesn’t support network drives. The app supports NTFS, FAT, exFAT, and ReFS file systems and can recover files in JPEG, PDF, PNG, MPEG, Office, MP3, MP4, ZIP formats. Also Read – Amazon Prime Video Windows app launched

There are three modes of file recovery: Default, Segment, and Signature. Microsoft recommends using the default mode to recover most recently deleted files, whether on HDDs or SSDs on your Windows PC, or external hard drives and flash drives of 4GB or higher. Also Read – Microsoft pushes new Edge browser for Windows 7 and 8 users

While the Segment mode is indicated for files that were deleted a long time ago, or after the disks have been formatted. Whereas, users should use the Signature mode if the previous ones were unable to locate the files.

The Windows File Recovery application only runs on Windows 10 build 19041, or later. The app is available to download for free from the Microsoft Store. The app does not support cloud storage recovery and network file sharing. As it only retrieves files stored on specific hardware.

Although the operation is simple, Windows File Recovery needs administrative privileges to function. Microsoft has a support document where you can learn how to use the tool. It will give you a complete idea of how to use all the recovery modes available and a series of command lines that you can use if you have never worked with such tools.