How to Restore a Deleted or Unsaved Photoshop File

When you delete a Photoshop file but the project isn't finished yet, what you need urgently is to recover the deleted Photoshop file. However, it's not easy to do that. Although Photoshop keeps offering considerate features for users to protect their works, you have to take time to learn how to recover Photoshop files, for those features may not be obvious enough to be discovered. But you are lucky enough to be here, for you can learn 4 excellent ways to recover deleted or unsaved Photoshop files.

• Part 1: The Easiest Way to Recover Photoshop Files
• Part 2: Recover Deleted/Unsaved Photoshop Files with AutoSave
• Part 3: Restore Deleted Photoshop Files from File History
• Part 4: Recover Unsaved Photoshop Files from Recent Files
• Part 5: FAQs of Recovering Photoshop Files

Part 1: The Easiest Way to Recover Photoshop Files

It's not necessarily required to learn how to recover unsaved Photoshop files within Photoshop, for Apeaksoft Data Recovery can quickly scan your PC/Mac to retrieve the deleted PSD files, and then you can easily recover them. It will highlight the lost files on your computer, so you can restore the Photoshops files with a few clicks. Besides, you can also plug your phone into your computer, and then this program can also recover the lost files on your phone.

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Step 1 Download Apeaksoft Data Recovery for free and launch it. Choose the disk where your PSD files were saved, and then choose the Others file type. Then, click the Scan button.

Step 1 The program will scan the chosen disk. After a while, you can search for the project name in the Search box, or navigate to the folder where your PSD was saved. Then, you can choose to recover the Photoshop file by clicking the Recover button.

Part 2: Recover Deleted/Unsaved Photoshop Files with AutoSave

If you have ever turned on the AutoSave feature in Photoshop, you can also recover Photoshop files with that. The AutoSave feature works the same when you recover an Excel file in Office, for it automatically saves your project regularly, and it also backs up your project file in a specific folder.

How to Check if AutoSave Is On

Step 1 Open Photoshop and click the Edit button on the top left side. Click the Preference button, then the General button.

Step 2 Click the File Handling button on the left menu bar. If you see the Automatically Save Recovery button is toggled, it means you can recover the deleted Photoshop files with this feature.

Recover Deleted PSD Files with AutoSave

Once you've ensured that AutoSave is on, you can go to a specific folder to recover Photoshop files. The folder is set to save app data from Photoshop. Please check the path:

On Windows:

C:\Users\%UserName%\AppData\Roaming\Adobe\Adobe Photoshop\AutoRecover

On Mac:

~/Library/Application Support/Adobe/Adobe Photoshop/AutoRecover

Maybe you have ever set where the Adobe data is to save, but you can finally recover the deleted Photoshop files in AppData on Windows or Adobe on Mac.

Part 3: Restore Deleted Photoshop Files from File History

If your computer crashed or powered off, the Photoshop project you were doing would be corrupted. In that case, maybe you can recover the Photoshop files from Previous Versions of your PC. It can recover your PC to a previous state when your Photoshop was not corrupted. Then, you can restore the unsaved Photoshop files right in the folder where it was. When your Windows does not load correctly, this method also works in recovering corrupted files.

Step 1 Search for restore files in the search box of Windows, and then choose Restore your files with File History.

Step 1 You also need an external drive or a network to recover deleted Photoshop files with File History. Plug your USB into your PC, and then search for if there's a lost PSD or PSB file in File History. Then, choose it right-click on it, and then click the Restore to button to recover the deleted Photoshop file.

Part 4: Recover Unsaved Photoshop Files from Recent Files

There's also another chance to recover the unsaved Photoshop files, and that is the Recent files. When you can't find your unsaved PSD file, you can go to Recent for luck.

Click the File button in the top left corner of Photoshop, and then the Open Recent button. Then, you can check if there are recent PSD files. If you haven't left aside Photoshop for too long, there's a high chance to recover Photoshop files in this way.