How Can I recover deleted music files? Don’t panic! Follow these proven methods to retrieve lost MP3, WAV, or other audio tracks from your Windows PC, Android or iPhone. Whether you accidentally deleted files or emptied the Recycle Bin, this guide covers quick fixes, free recovery software, and advanced techniques to restore your music with minimal effort.
Music files—whether they’re cherished playlists, rare recordings, or original compositions—hold immense personal and emotional value. Losing them due to accidental deletion, formatting, or system crashes can be devastating. Many users panic when they realize their favorite songs are gone, especially if they weren’t backed up.
Apart from accidental deletion, other common scenarios where music files go missing include:
So, is music file recovery possible? Yes! In most cases, deleted music files can be recovered as long as they haven’t been overwritten by new data. When files are deleted, they aren’t immediately erased from storage; instead, the space they occupied is marked as available for new data. Using the right tools and techniques, you can restore lost audio files before they’re permanently gone.
Losing your favorite music files can be frustrating, regardless of the causes. Fortunately, there are ways to recover deleted music files on various devices, including Android phones, iPhones, and Windows computers. Below, we’ll guide you through the recovery process for each device, ensuring you can retrieve your precious music tracks efficiently.
Android devices store music files in internal storage or SD cards, and accidental deletions can happen easily. You can try the following methods to recover deleted audio or music files from android smartphones.
Different from computers, Android phones typically don't have a "recycle bin" feature. Instead, they have features within specific apps that act as temporary storage for deleted items, like photos, videos, or files. For example, some Android file managerscome with a separate folder called "trash" or "recently deleted "to storedeleted files, which allows you to restore deleted files for a limited time (typically 30 days).
Open the Files app on your Android device, tap the hamburger menu and select "trash"or "recently deleted", select your deleted music files inside and tap on "Restore".
If you’ve backed up your music files using Google Drive or other cloud apps, you can restore them from the cloud. Just open your Google Drive App, find the music file you want to recover, tap the three dots, and then select "Download".
If your music files are not stored in the internal storage, but the SD card, you can remove the SD card and access it from a computer with recovery software to scan it and recover music files on Windows computer. For more details, skip to the part 3.
iPhones don’t have a traditional file system, but music files can still be recovered if they were stored in certain apps or synced via iTunes/iCloud.
If a backup exists from before the deletion, you can reset the iPhone and restore it (warning: this replaces current data).
Windows PCs store music in various locations, and recovery is often possible even after deletion. If you just use the "delete" button to remove the music files, you can easily restore them from Recycle Bin. However, if the Recycle Bin is emptied or you use "shift+delete" combination, the music files cannot be restored from Recycle Bin. In such cases, the following advanced methods are required:
If the Windows built-in File History Backup is enabled before the music files are deleted, you can restore them from the backup.
1. Go to Settings > Update & Security > Files Backup >More Options.
2. In the new window, scroll down and choose "Restore files from a current backup".
3. In the File History window, browse throughall backups. Choose the specific music files, and click "Restore" or "Restore to".
If no any backups are available in your situation, you can turn to some data recovery software like Free MyRecover, which can scan your hard drive for deleted music files. If data are removed from SD card on your iPhone, Android, or other devices, you can remove the SD card, connect it to a Windows computer and restore deleted music files then.
Step 1. Download and install MyRecover on your hard drive (not the drive where the lost music files stayed previously).
Step 2. Run the software, select the target drive and click on "Scan" button.
Step 3. For recently deleted files, it will perform a quick scan. Afterwards, you can browse all recoverable files. Check the box in front of the music files and click on "Recover".
If the quick scan does not find your deleted audio files, use "Deep Scan" mode instead.
Step 4. Then select another different drive to hold the recovered music files.
Then wait patiently—the time required depends onthe number and size of the files being recovered, as well as the speed of your storage device (faster drives complete the process quicker). Once finished, MyRecover will notify you that the recovery is complete.
You can click on the new path, directly navigate to the saved location and verify that the music files.
MyRecover works with nearly all common storage media like computer hard drives (HDD/SSD), portable storage (USB flash drives, external HDDs), memory cards (SD, microSD, CF), even specialized devices like digital camera, gaming consoles and drones.
Safely remove the storage device from your camera, gaming console, drone, or other equipment, connect it to your Windows computer (via appropriate adapter if needed), launch MyRecover to scan and recover your lost files. For example, you can recover lost files from camera memory card.
Losing music files—whether due to accidental deletion, formatting, or corruption—can be stressful, but as this guide has shown, recovery is often possible with the right approach. By following the methods outlined for Windows PCs, Android phones, and iPhones, you can easily recoverdeleted music filesbefore they’re permanently overwritten.
The MyRecover mentioned above can help recover data from deletion, format, virus attack, emptied Recycle Bin, corrupted drive. To handle more complex data loss cases, like recovering files from crashed computer, you can use the MyRecover Professional edition.