Windows 10: Windows 10 (1803.17134 ) Disk Cleanup deleted the contents of my downloads folder

When running disk cleanup, when I included 'clean up system files' the last entry was 'downloaded files 79gb'. The description was activex controls and javaapplets temporarily stored in the downloads folder.


I don't know why I thought there could possibly be that volume of temporary system files but in the event, I stupidly hit enter and lost the entire contents of my download folder. There's nothing in trash and nothing in file history..... I have a screen print of the list but see no way to upload it here.


Any suggestions on what happened and how to recover the data?


Thanks

:)

 

DISK CLEANUP

Hello,



Thank you for writing to Microsoft Community Forums.

1. Which files are you trying to delete using disk clean up?
2. Which version of Windows are you currently using?

Please reply back with the information to the above questions in order to provide you with appropriate troubleshooting steps:



I understand that you are trying to free up memory using Disk Cleanup. If you are trying to delete files using disk cleanup on Windows 10, I suggest you to refer the following article on

Disk cleanup in Windows 10 for steps to perform disk clean up on your PC.



Hope it helps.



Sandeep Kumar M

Microsoft Community – Moderator

 

WindowsApps Folder Cleanup

Hi,

Thank you for writing to Microsoft Community Forums.

I Suggest you to take ownership of the folder and attempt to delete the contents of the folder, I recommend you to try the below steps:

Step 1:

Follow the steps listed in
Access Denied or other errors when you access or work with files and folders in Windows.

Step 2:

Check for the article
Disk cleanup in Windows 10

Hope it helps,

Let us know if you got the help you needed by clicking yes Or No.

Mithin EJ

Microsoft Community- Moderator

 

Disk bloat in Windows 10 Fall Creators Update

Is it my imagination, or does the Windows 10 Fall Creators Update consume an additional 20-30GB of disk space over the previous Creators Update release? Unfortunately, I didn't log my disk usage before the upgrade, but now my C: drive has 56GB of stuff, and I know it wasn't anywhere near that full before. I've run "Disk Cleanup -> Clean up system files" and selected everything on the list, including remove previous version of Windows. I also emptied my Recycle Bin, my Temp folder, \Windows\Temp folder, and \Windows\SoftwareDistribution\Download folder. Finally, I ran Wise Disk Cleaner to delete assorted application garbage.

Has anyone else noticed the bloat in Fall Creators Update?