This browser is no longer supported.
Upgrade to Microsoft Edge to take advantage of the latest features, security updates, and technical support.
![](data:image/svg+xml, %3Csvg xmlns='http://www.w3.org/2000/svg' height='64' class='font-weight-bold' style='font: 600 30.11764705882353px "SegoeUI", Arial' width='64'%3E%3Ccircle fill='hsl(128, 8%, 22%)' cx='32' cy='32' r='32' /%3E%3Ctext x='50%25' y='55%25' dominant-baseline='middle' text-anchor='middle' fill='%23FFF' %3EA%3C/text%3E%3C/svg%3E)
Used Undeleter to retreive a Excel file (xls) after I cleared the Recycle Bin but need to convert it back to "xls" from "lnk".
Locked Question. This question was migrated from the Microsoft Support Community. You can vote on whether it's helpful, but you can't add comments or replies or follow the question.
Answer accepted by question author
There's no way of getting the file back (unless you've lost the file and deleted the shortcut instead of the actual file, in which case, search for the file in 'Computer')
~1000bytes is a normal size for a shortcut
I don't know of any way to find deleted files using the command prompt.
Convert "lnk" file extension to "xls" file extension.
It is a Shortcut file but, it's showing 772 bytes. Is there any other way of retreiving the data.
Done another check with Undeleter and no other file came up with the same name.
What about DOS prompt.
.ink is the file extension for shortcuts. It isn't the excel file you need. Check again for the .xls file with Undeleter.
If you want to convert it anyway, open a folder, click organize, click 'folder and search options', under the view tab uncheck 'hide file extensions for known file types', Click through any prompts(if any appear), Click OK, then go to the file and replace the .ink with .xls.
NOTE: there is a 99.9% chance that the file you found is a shortcut to the file you need and will probably give errors when to try to open it after converting the file type to .xls
