How to Recover Antivirus Deleted Files | 4 Effective Methods

Antivirus Deleted My Important Files

Antivirus software such as Kaspersky, Avast, Norton, and Windows Defender are almost essential computer applications because they can prevent most viruses from attacking the device, thereby protecting data and system security. However, there are many cases reported of antivirus software mistakenly deleting reliable files. Here is an example:

"When I insert a memory stick to the computer, McAfee immediately deleted all the files on the stick, no warning, no asking for permission or confirmation, just going forward and deleting the files. What happened? How can I recover these antivirus mistakenly deleted files."

With this in mind, we wrote this article to show you how to recover files deleted by antivirus programs using several reliable methods.

#1. Check the Recycle Bin

The Windows Recycle Bin is used to temporarily store deleted files on your computer. Therefore, when your files are deleted by antivirus software, you should check whether they are stored in the Recycle Bin first. If yes, select them and right-click on them to select Restore.

#2. Recover Deleted Files With CMD

If you are unable to recover antivirus deleted files from the Recycle Bin for some reason, such as the Recycle Bin has been emptied or the Recycle Bin is grayed out, then you can try using the command to recover deleted files.

Step 1. In the Windows search box, type cmd and then right-click Command Prompt from the best match result to select Run as administrator.

Step 2. In the UAC window, select the Yes option.

Step 3. In the command line window, type chkdsk drive letter:  /f and press Enter. For example, if the deleted files were stored in the D drive, you need to type chkdsk D:  /f.

Step 4. Once the command is finished, type the drive letter again and press Enter.

Step 5. Next, type attrib -h -r -s /s /d *.* and press Enter.

If these steps are not impractical for you, try the next solution.

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#3. Recover Antivirus Deleted Files and Programs From Quarantine

Most antivirus programs are designed with a Quarantine, which is used to store potentially harmful files. It isolates suspected items from the rest of the operating system. Files moved to Quarantine are not permanently removed, and you can return them to their previous locations.

Here, we take Kaspersky, Avast, Norton, McAfee, AVG, and Windows Defender for example to show you how to recover quarantined files. Please note that operations may differ slightly across different program versions.

Recover Files Deleted by Kaspersky

If you are using Kaspersky antivirus, launch the program, click More Tools, and choose Quarantine.

After opening the Quarantine, all potentially risky files will be listed. You need to choose the wanted one and restore it.

Recover Files Deleted by Avast

In the main window of Avast, click Scan, choose Scan for viruses, then select Quarantine (Virus Chest) from the bottom.

After that, the Virus Chest window will appear. To restore a wrongly deleted file or program, you need to right-click it and choose Restore.

Recover Files Deleted by Norton

In the main window of Norton, choose Security > History > Quarantine. Then, select the files or programs you want to recover and restore them. Or you can click Advanced > Quarantine to restore the useful files.

Recover Files Deleted by McAfee

On the McAfee home page, click Navigation in the top right corner, choose Quarantined and Trusted Items, and then click Quarantined Items or Quarantined Potentially Unwanted Programs to view the list of quarantined items. Finally, select and restore needed files or programs.

Recover Files Deleted by AVG

In the main window of AVG, click the Options menu on the top right corner and choose Virus Vault. Then, select the needed files to restore.

Recover Files Deleted by Windows Defender

How to recover files deleted by Windows Defender from Quarantine? In Windows Settings, click Update & Security > Windows Security > Virus & threat protection > Protection history. Then select the Quarantined Items option from the Filters drop-down menu.

Finally, select the item you want to retrieve and choose Restore.

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However, occasionally, you can’t restore quarantined files in Windows Defender or other antivirus programs. The following causes can be responsible for this situation:

• Antivirus just hides files rather than deletes them.
• Deleted files are too large to be quarantined, similar to accidentally deleted files being too large for the Recycle Bin.

Well, how can you recover antivirus deleted files that are not in Quarantine? Keep reading to get detailed operations.

#4. Recover Antivirus Deleted Files Using Data Recovery Software

If the deleted files cannot be recovered by using the Quarantine feature, you need to seek help from professional and green data recovery software.

Regarding data restoration tools, MiniTool Power Data Recovery is the ideal one for Windows users. It is capable of recovering files from computer hard drives, USB drives, SD cards, pen drives, etc. no matter whether they are accessible or inaccessible.

Apart from recovering antivirus deleted files, MiniTool Power Data Recovery also excels at recovering data in a variety of other unexpected scenarios, such as recovering files after reinstalling Windows, restoring data from an invalid system disk, recovering data after disk boot failure, etc.

Now, follow the guide below to recover files deleted by antivirus.

Before you do, download and install MiniTool Power Data Recovery Free on your Windows computer.

MiniTool Power Data Recovery FreeClick to Download100%Clean & Safe

Then, launch MiniTool Power Data Recovery to get its main window. On this page, select the partition where file loss emerges and click Scan. If the deleted files were stored on the desktop or in a specific folder before, you can choose to scan the desktop or that folder individually, which can save scanning time.

Depending on the total amount of data in the selected location, this secure data recovery service may take a long time to show you all the scan results. Please wait patiently until the whole scan is finished for the best scanning results.

After scanning, you can unfold each folder to look for the files you want to restore. Finding the files you need from a large number of scan results can be difficult and time-consuming, so you may consider using the following features:

• Filter: You can filter out unnecessary files by file type, file size, file modification date, and file category. Since MiniTool Power Data Recovery will scan and display deleted, lost, and existing files of the selected location, to recover files deleted by antivirus, you can select the Deleted Files option from the By File Category drop-down menu to view all deleted data only.
• Search: You can search for a certain file by typing the complete or partial file name in the search box and pressing the Enter key.
• Preview: You can preview the found items by double-clicking on them or clicking the Preview button. Various types of files are supported for preview, such as MP4, JPG, PNG, DOC, DOCX, PDF, XLS, PPT, PSD, and so on.

Finally, select all necessary items and click the Save button to choose a storage location for the recovered files.

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Antivirus Deleted File Recovery for Other Devices

Apart from Windows PCs, the antivirus could be running on other devices, such as Mac machines and mobile phones. Consequently, we will introduce additional data recovery software to help you recover antivirus deleted files from your Mac and phone.

For Mac:

To recover antivirus deleted files on Mac machines, firstly, you need to consider recovering them from a backup file, which could be created by iCloud, iTunes, Time Machine, or other file backup programs. If there is no backup available, make use of Stellar Data Recovery for Mac. This program has similar features as MiniTool Power Data Recovery and can assist you in recovering deleted documents, photos, videos, audio, emails, etc.

Stellar Data Recovery for Mac is effective in multiple data loss or inaccessible situations, such as Disk Utility can’t repair this disk, Mac won’t boot past the Apple logo, and more. If you have the demand for Mac antivirus deleted file recovery, download the trial edition and have a try.

Data Recovery for MacClick to Download100%Clean & Safe

For iPhone:

Similarly, to recover antivirus deleted files from iPhone, you can check whether there is an iCloud backup, iTunes backup, or other types of backups first of all. If yes, restore the deleted data from the backup. If there is no backup or you just want to restore backup files selectively, MiniTool Mobile Recovery for iOS can help you out.

This iOS data recovery tool is able to effectively recover deleted files from 0 bytes iPhone, recover files from the iPhone that keeps restarting, and so on.

MiniTool iOS Recovery on WindowsClick to Download100%Clean & Safe

For Android phones:

To recover antivirus deleted files from Android mobile phones, you can use MiniTool Mobile Recovery for Android. It is reliable and green Android data recovery software running on Windows machines and capable of restoring data from Android internal memory as well as SD cards.

MiniTool Android Recovery on WindowsClick to Download100%Clean & Safe

For more information about how to use MiniTool Mobile Recovery for Android to recover deleted files, please refer to this page.

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Bottom Line

If the antivirus software has deleted your important files due to a wrong judgment, please apply the methods described above to restore the removed items.

If you have any questions about antivirus deleted file recovery, please feel free to contact us via [email protected].