Finding a Lost File in Microsoft Windows

Video Transcript

"Hi! I’m Ross. Thanks for visiting expertvillage.com. What can we do with computer files? Let’s find out. In this clip, I’ll talk about finding a lost file. Typically, you would use the search command. Before we get to that, let’s talk about something that occurred on the help desk for me. I had a customer call once and say my folder is completely gone, it has been deleted, it’s missing. Their perspective is it has been deleted. It was just there moments before. I quiz them a little bit and I have the sense that what happened is they simply dragged the folder to another area. Now if you can imagine, take this structure where there is multiple folders and expand it out about five or six times so there are folders all the way down the screen here. When you’re moving your mouse about, if you left click something and drag it, that’s a way to move the file, or folder in this case. If I let up right there, lo and behold, that folder is gone. Now, we know that I dropped it in here because we watched it, but if you’re moving by and accidentally clicked the mouse for a moment and let right back up, it’s going to drop it some place. How do you find it? Well, there is something you could do instead, and this is what we did. I had that individual, since there were probably 20 or 30 folders there, use the control Z, which is the same as the undo command. Undo move, I’m going to click this. Look at that, creativity is back here. Yes, the plus sign is still here, but that’s just a remnant, it hasn’t updated yet. I clicked on it and it disappeared so the folder is back. That’s one way to find the lost file or folder."