Admit it, panic immediately sets in when you can’t seem to find missing files on your PC. You are not alone, as a lot of computer users go through such horrifying moments, looking for important files they can not remember where they saved. Imagine a student who received an important photo for her school project as an attachment in an email. After saving it in the computer, she can’t locate it anymore.

If you can imagine yourself trying to find missing files on your PC like this student, it should be comforting to know that there is a way to do so, wherever it is stored on your PC.

Find Missing Files on Your PC using the Windows Search Function

Frantic searching for misplaced or missing files happens quite often to a lot of people and yet, the search function of Windows is one of the least used. One reason is that some computer users do not even know that such a function exists. A very useful utility tool such as this should not go to waste. If you have not tried using it, you might as well learn to do it now because you never know when you will need to find missing files on your PC.

To use the Windows search function to find missing files on your PC, press or click “Start” and go to “Search” – the button with the magnifying glass icon. Then, a menu appears which prompts you to identify what kind of file you are looking for such as photo, video or music, documents or files and folders.

Then, it will prompt you to specify your search criteria, i.e., when was it last modified and its filename (in full or part of its filename) if it is a document you are missing. There is also an option to use advanced search features.

To recover missing photos, simply click the appropriate button in the Search menu. It will then ask you to refine your search criteria by choosing a photo/picture, a music or a video file you are looking for. If you do not have a filename and you clicked just “Pictures and Photos”, it will show you all the photos and images stored in your computer.

Of course, if you have hundreds of them, it will still prove difficult to find or recover missing photos. So, it is more advisable to type in even just a part of the filename if possible, just to narrow down your search field. Again, you will have the option to use advanced search features if you wish.

Using the search function to recover missing photos or find missing files on your PC is faster, easier and more efficient than manually going over every nook and cranny of your PC’s memory.