TXT File Recovery – 3 Ways to Recover Text Documents in Windows

I had a text file to save all my important links and notes. Today when I was working on it, all of a sudden the text file crashed. when I reopened it, the file was empty with zero bytes. I am so stuck now as it has all my important data.

A text file is a computer file that only contains text and has no special formatting such as bold text, italic text, images, etc. Text files are identified with the .txt file extension. Because of their simplicity, text files are commonly used for storage of information.

However,

There are instances where you both knowingly and unknowingly end up losing vital text files due to one or more reasons. It is painful when you are suffering from forbidding data loss crisis. So finding the better way to recover these deleted or lost text file is extremely necessary.

Let’s see how we can easily recover deleted txt files.

1. Recover Text Document from Temp Files or ASD Files

Actually, when you delete any text file from computer, the system will not erase content of that text file. Rather it removes the text file name from the index table and a bit of information that points to the location of the file. After that, when the file is accessed, the program is unable to locate it.

With a bit of technique, you can easily recover the lost txt documents.

Here are the steps to restore the unsaved files or recover deleted text files through temp files and asd files.

Step 1Go to Start on your computer.

Step 2Type %AppData% in the Search for files or folders named box.

Step 3Click Enter to direct to C:\Users\USERNAME\AppData\Roaming.

Step 4Type your lost text document or .asd or .tmp at the right search bar.

Step 5Find the file you want based on the modified date and copy the file to the desktop.

Step 6Change the filename extension from .asd or .tmp to .txt.

2. Recover Corrupted Text File from Previous Versions

Windows has a tool that automatically saves old versions of your data files, giving users a chance to restore the older version of the existing files.

If system protection is turned on, Windows will automatically create previous versions of the modified files and folders.

To turn on system protection, follow the steps.

Step 1Navigate to Control Panel > System and Security > System.

Step 2Click System Protection under Control Panel Home.

Step 3Choose the Drive and click Configure.

Step 4In the new window, mark Restore System Settings and Previous Versions of Files and click Ok.

Read more about how to recover text file from hard drive.

Now, let’s use this feature to restore the older versions of text files.

Step 1Go to the folder containing the file in question.

Step 2Right-click the file and select Restore Previous Version. You’ll see a list of available previous versions of the file.

Step 3Before restoring a previous version of a file or folder, select the previous version, and then click Open to view it to make sure it’s the version you want.

Step 4To restore a previous version, select the previous version, and then click Restore.

3. Recover Deleted Text Files with Fonelab

What is the easiest way to execute text file recovery?

Indeed, you can restore the lost or deleted txt Files within few simple clicks with the help of a recovery tool.

FoneLab Data Retriever has a capability of recovering almost all deleted or unsaved text files by scanning your computer. It is able to recover txt files lost in various situations such as system crash, non-responding, unsaved, deletion, corruption, overwritten, etc.

Let’s see how it works.

Step 1Run Windows File Recovery

Click the above links to free download and install this software on your computer. Once the installation is done, the software will get launched automatically.

Step 2Select Data Type and Disk Drive

On the homepage, choose the data types you want to recover first. Here you should choose Document. Then select the location where you lost the files. If you forget where the document was lost, you can choose Recycle Bin to recover files from Recycle Bin.

Step 3Scan Data

Click Scan button to start the quick scan process. After finishing the scan process, all files will be listed on the left sidebar. On this page, you can click Deep Scan in the top right corner to get more scan results.

Step 4Choose Data

Click Documents > TXT to find your needed file. You can also take advantage of Filter feature to quickly locate the files you want to recover.

Step 5Recover Data

Mark the items and click Recover. The selected files will be saved back to your computer.

That’s all.

In addition to text file, this software can also recover Word document and restore Excel file.

More than that,

This software is able to get back the deleted text files from memory card, flash drive, digital camera camcorder, etc.

It is such a powerful and safe data recovery software. Why not place this software on your computer and have a try.