Microsoft has quietly released a utility dubbed the ‘Windows File Recovery’ that is designed to retrieve mistakenly deleted files. The new tool is a command-line application and can be downloaded from the Windows Store.
According to the company, this tool can recover files from different file systems on local hard drives, USB drives, and even SD cards from cameras. Naturally, the recovery on cloud storage or network file shares is not supported. Moreover, like most recovery tools, the chances of recovery are higher if you run the tool as soon as the files are deleted to ensure they are not overwritten.
The tool supports all file formats, including MP3 files, MP4 videos, PDF documents, JPEG images, and typical Word, Excel, and PowerPoint documents.
As far as the supported file systems are concerned, although the tool has a default mode that’s designed primarily for NTFS file systems, it also comes with a second signature mode that allows users to recover files across FAT, exFAT, and ReFS file systems. The second signature will take more time to recover the files though.
Microsoft already provides a similar function in Windows 10, however, it needs to be enabled using the File History Feature.
