Lost my wallpaper folder but Windows still showing them. Where can I find them?

Jed Shields · 9 Oct 2022 at 16:45

Hello all,

I had a folder of wallpapers on my desktop that I had relocated to my D drive. I selected all the images then set to desktop wallpaper so that they would randomly change over time. I have just reinstalled Windows and upgraded to Windows 11, from 10, but the folder has disappeared. However, the wallpaper slideshow is still working, so Windows must have them stored somewhere. Any idea where I can find them?

Cheers,

Jed

Glanza · 9 Oct 2022 at 20:20

Have a look in: C:\Windows\Web and it's subfolders

Jed Shields · 9 Oct 2022 at 22:43

No luck, there are a load of folders with just stock images in them, nothing of mine.

drakulton · 9 Oct 2022 at 22:46

Is your m$ account synced to the cloud?

Jed Shields · 9 Oct 2022 at 23:00

drakulton said:
Is your m$ account synced to the cloud?

I believe it might be. Or it must be if it's still showing those files. Would it be on OneDrive, or is it something else?

drakulton · 9 Oct 2022 at 23:10

Jed Shields said:
I believe it might be. Or it must be if it's still showing those files. Would it be on OneDrive, or is it something else?

It could be on your onedrive if you allow syncing on your account.

rids57 · 10 Oct 2022 at 07:10

C:\Users\[User Name]\AppData\Roaming\Microsoft\Windows\Themes\CachedFiles

Murphy · 10 Oct 2022 at 07:50

Where it's pulling them from is stored in the registry but as it's in binary you'll either need something to make it readable or you could just use a bit of powershell.

Code:

$WPFolder=(Get-ItemProperty 'HKCU:\Control Panel\Desktop' TranscodedImageCache).TranscodedImageCache
[System.Text.Encoding]::Unicode.GetString($WPFolder)

Jed Shields · 10 Oct 2022 at 12:26

I've found the DesktopBackground folder in my AppData folder. Unfortunately it just cached a handful of my images.

Can anyone recommend an ideally free data recovery program? Might be worth a try...

Murphy · 10 Oct 2022 at 12:38

If you've reinstalled Windows and upgraded to Windows 11, from 10, there'll be very little chance of recovering anything usable as you've probably written over the data at least twice by now.

That is unless you're talking about the folder you relocated to your D: drive but then (afaik) Windows setup/install/upgrade wouldn't typically delete files on a drive that it's not installing to/on.

Jed Shields · 10 Oct 2022 at 13:32

Yeah, that's what I thought. The weird thing is that I always remap my Documents, Downloads, Photos, Desktop etc to the D drive so that they're safe when I reformat my C drive. Something must have gone wrong at some point. I'm kicking myself for not backing it up elsewhere. It definitely slipped through the cracks.

Murphy · 10 Oct 2022 at 14:05

You're not signed in with another profile or something are you, like a temp profile.

Jed Shields · 10 Oct 2022 at 15:03

No, same acount.

Murphy · 10 Oct 2022 at 15:47

You've probably already searched the drive for images so i guess your best hope is to try a data recovery program, i wish i could recommended one but I've never had much success with them myself so hopefully other posters can make some suggestions.

Nevakonaza · 10 Oct 2022 at 23:47

Jed Shields said:
Can anyone recommend an ideally free data recovery program? Might be worth a try...

Recuva is pretty decent, Even the free version.

i was able to recover ALL my lost London photos when i accidently deleted them.