A notepad is an ideal tool for you to create and edit plain texts. But have you ever experienced accidentally closing .txt files due to a power outage or system crash? In fact, the situation is so common that everyone has encountered it at times. Many people find recovering notepad files hopeless since notepad doesn't support the auto-save function. So, were all the efforts in vain? Is there still a chance to restore lost information?

Fortunately, the article provides a comprehensive guide on how to recover notepad files on Windows (10/11). You will find ways out here whether to recover unsaved notepad files or recover deleted notepad files.

Built into Microsoft Windows, notepad is a very ancient application specializing in creating plain texts without special formatting. It can also be used to open and edit text files, INI files, batch files, log files, and other compatible notepad files. Since notepad files don’t record character style, character size, and pagination, they usually have small memory. In addition, notepad files are known for high readability, and they can easily be opened on any program. For these reasons, notepad files are ideal for storing text-based information such as instructions, notes, manuscripts, etc.

As mentioned earlier, notepad lacks an auto-save feature. So how to recover notepad TXT files if you accidentally closed it? Theoretically, an unsaved notepad file is unrecoverable because it has not been officially written to the disk yet. However, it is still a hope to recover unsaved notepad files from the temporary files. The key to this recovery approach is not to shut down or restart your computer in case of losing temp files. Do not take any action before you try these steps below.

Step 1. Go to the File Explorer/ Windows Explorer > System Drive C: > Users. Select your user folder and double-click it to open it.

Step 2. Expand the “AppData” subdirectory and access the Roaming folder.

Step 3. Type .txt (filename extension) in the searching bar and wait for the search to complete. Look for the unsaved file among these results and get it restored.

Tips:

Some people are unable to find the AppData folder. It is most likely that Windows hides it by default. Additional steps are required to proceed:

Step 1. Navigate to File Explorer/ Windows Explorer and select View > Options > Change folder and search options.

Step 2. Choose the View tab in the Folder Options. Tick the Show hidden files, folders, and drives box under the Hidden files and folders in the advanced settings.

Ways to recover deleted notepad files vary case by case. Let’s take a closer look at how to recover notepad files in different situations.

Situation 1. How to Recover Notepad Files Temporarily Deleted

If you delete a notepad file but later realize you shouldn’t have deleted it, you can bring it back from the recycle bin, where temporarily-deleted files can remain for 30 days, depending on your settings. Here is how to recover notepad files from recycle bin on Windows 10/11.

Step 1. Open the recycle bin folder on your desktop and locate the deleted notepad file you wish to restore.

Step 2. Right-click it to expand a drop-down menu and choose the Restore option to recover it to where it was.

Situation 2. How to Recover Notepad Files Permanently Deleted

Restoring notepad files in recycle bin applies to a “soft delete.” However, if you have emptied recycle bin or used shift+delete to completely delete the notepad files, the situation will become more complicated, and specialized software is required to solve the problem. iTop Data Recovery offers a one-stop solution that allows people to restore any data loss.

       

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Using the data recovery software to recover notepad files is easy. Follow the steps below and restore missing data quickly in a few clicks.

Step 1. Download and install the iTop Data Recovery software on your Windows PC.

Step 2. Launch the iTop Data Recovery on your computer. Next, select the locations and file types you want to scan and click the blue button to start. You will see a scanning progress percentage and scanned file quantity.

Step 3. You will direct to a search result page when scanning is finished. Tick the notepad file you deleted, and click the Recover button to restore it.

Conclusion

To sum up, the article discusses proven ways to recover notepad files in different cases. Since unsaved notepad files remain in the computer memory temporarily, you can restore them from the Appdata folder. Deleted notepad files can either be recovered from the recycle bin or through professional software. We strongly recommend iTop Data Recovery to all of you as the powerful tool can handle all kinds of data loss issues. Whether to recover unsaved notepad files or recover deleted notepad files, iTop is your excellent assistant.

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For Windows 11/10/8/7