Zip File Recovery: How to Recover Deleted or Corrupted Zip Files?

Zip files are useful for compressing multiple files and folders, making them smaller and easier to transfer. However, sometimes you may unfortunately lost Zip files due to accidental deletion or errors that lead to corruption. Don’t worry! There’s a good chance you can recover them.

When you lose ZIP files from your computer, they aren’t erased right away. Instead, the space they took up is marked as available, but new files can overwrite it. This means you can still recover the files if they haven’t been overwritten yet. To increase your chances, avoid saving new files to the same location.

5 ways for Zip file recovery

In this section, you will learn how to recover deleted Zip files on PC. You can use a professional Zip file recovery tool to recover lost files, or run Windows built-in tools.

Way 1. Run a Zip file recovery tool

Generally, using the right Zip file recovery tool can make the process much simpler and faster. Here we would like to recommend AOMEI FastRecovery, a reliable tool for recovering lost, deleted, or corrupted files on Windows PCs and servers. Whether your files were deleted by accident, corruption, or due to a system crash, AOMEI FastRecovery can quickly restore them with ease.

Step 1. Install and launch AOMEI FastRecovery. Choose the exact partition or disk where your data lost and click Scan.

Step 2. Then, the recovery tool start to scan and search. lt will execute the “Quickly Scan" first for finding your deleted data fast, and then execute the “Deep Scan" for searching other lost data.

Step 3. Once the scan is completed, all deleted files, recycle bins and other missing files will be displayed. Please select the file you would like to recover and then click "Recover".

Step 4. Then, select a folder path to save your recovered files.

Step 5. Wait patiently for this process of recovering ends.

Method 2. Recover deleted ZIP files from Recycle Bin

If you accidentally deleted your crucial ZIP files, don’t panic. Go to check your Recycle Bin first, since the deleted files or folders are often temporarily stored there. And you can easily get them back through the following steps:

Step 1. Open the Recycle Bin first. Often, accidentally deleted folders can be found here.

Step 2. Search your Zip files within the search bar.

Step 3. Right-click on the search result and select Restore to return it to its original location.

Tips: If you can’t find the desired files in the Recycle Bin, they might have been permanently removed. In such a situation, retrieving missing files from Recycle Bin is not available. Keep reading the solutions mentioned below to recover the deleted ZIP files.

Method 3. Recover deleted Zip files with File History

If you cannot retrieve the missing Zip files from the Recycle Bin, consider recovering them via File History. This is a practical built-in Windows feature, supporting saving the copies of your files regularly and protecting them against accidental loss. It is often used to restore previous versions of files when they are deleted or corrupted. The specific recovery steps are as follows:

Step 1. Go to the Control Panel, and select System and Security > File History in turn.

Step 2. Click Restore personal files.

Step 3. Choose the files you want to recover, and then click the Recover button.

Method 4. Recover deleted or corrupted Zip files from Backup and Restore

In addition to File History, you can also restore deleted Zip files by using Backup and Restore. This feature allows users to create backups of the entire system or individual folders. Compared with the former one, Backup and Restore is more applicable to recovering data in more complex scenarios, such as system failure or hard disk corruption. If you have enabled this feature in advance, you can use it to recover deleted Zip files effortlessly. Here are the specific steps to recover deleted Zip files using Backup and Restore:

Step 1. Go to the Control Panel, and select System and Security > Backup and Restore in turn.

Step 2. Click Restore my files.

Step 3. Click Browse for files to choose the file you want to recover, and then click Next.

Step 4. Specify the saving path for your recovered file, and click Restore.

Notes: Both File History and Backup and Restore features need to be set up and activated manually in advance, otherwise they will not work. If you’re unfamiliar with these features, try the following method to recover deleted ZIP files.

Method 5. Restore D drive in Windows 10 by system restore

If we have created system restore points regularly on the computer, it would be much easier for us to return the PC to a normal status where the D drive is still there. Given that there are sufficient system restore points:

Step 1. Type system restore on the Search box in Windows 10. Click "Create a restore point" from the list.

Step 2. In the pop out window, click "System Restore" to start.

Step 3. Follow the wizard to select the correct system point for restoring. It will take anywhere from 10 to 30 minutes.

Tip: Once started, System Restore cannot be interrupted. The computer will restart later, so be sure all programs are closed.

Summary

In this post about Zip file recovery, we share why ZIP files get lost and how to recover them on Windows. There are useful and practical methods you can try to recover your files. If these don’t work, using a professional tool like AOMEI FastRecovery is a great option to make the process easier. Also, it's important to protect your important files to avoid losing them again.