How to Recover Deleted Files Using File History It might be a day old, but it’s better to lose a day than lose everything. If so, you can recover an earlier version of your file through the recovery service in backup. If it's not in your trashcan, then there are a number of other things you can try to recover a deleted file. Did you find what you thought you had deleted? Simply drag it back onto your desktop, and you are good to go. Just double-click on the Recycle Bin or trashcan and you can see everything that's inside.