I accidently have deleted several files and folders

Question

I wanted to uninstall and delete a application called "Telegram", so I have uninstalled from Ubuntu software(store) and I also wanted to delete all the files related to that(telegram),so I opened files(Ubuntu file explorer) and searched for "tel" to find and delete the folders and files related to telegram,but unfortunately I have selected all(shift+end) files and folders which have appeared there for my query and I have deleted(shift+delete) all of those files and folders.

As of now my system works properly and I haven't faced any issues.What can I do to retrieve those files and place them in their respective folders and directories.

Answer 1

From your description, it can be assumed that you deleted files from your home directory that contained "tel" in their name or as a word within the file. That could probably mean a lot of files, but indeed, since no system files are affected, your system continues to run normally.

According to the description you provided, you did not delete system files. So there, you can rest assured.

Hidden and visible files in your home folder are personal files. If you had turned "hidden files" on (you do not mention that), then also user configuration files will have been deleted.

Your personal data files are unique to you. The filemanager normally provides a safeguard, where files you delete are moved into a temporary space, the Trash, until you delete them permanently. As you used Shift+Delete, you immediately deleted the files for good. Accordingly, the only secure way to restore all your data is to restore them from your backup copy.

In the absence of that, you can try to recover the deleted files from the hard drive. However, that is not trivial: you may recover the raw data only, loosing file name and file structure. Even if done by a professional service, the outcome may not be quite satisfactory.

Restoring user configuration data can be done from a backup if you had them. Otherwise, loosing these is not that critical (except where you would loose locally stored email in for example thunderbird). If configuration files are lacking, the application will automatically recreate default configuration files.