extundelete

Restore all deleted files inside partition N on device X

$ sudo extundelete [/dev/sdXN] --restore-all

Restore a file from a path relative to root (Do not start the path with /)

$ extundelete [/dev/sdXN] --restore-file [path/to/file]

Restore a directory from a path relative to root (Do not start the path with /)

$ extundelete [/dev/sdXN] --restore-directory [path/to/directory]

Restore all files deleted after January 1st, 2020 (in Unix time)

$ extundelete [/dev/sdXN] --restore-all --after [1577840400]

extundelete [options] device-file...

extundelete is a utility that can recover deleted files from an ext3 or ext4 partition
extundelete uses the information stored in the partition's journal to attempt to recover a file that has been deleted from the partition.
There is no guarantee that any particular file will be able to be undeleted, so always try to have a good backup system in place, or at least put one in place after recovering your files!

--version

Prints the version number of extundelete.

--help

Print a brief usage summary for extundelete.

Partition name

Name of the partition that has deleted files, such as /dev/sda3.
Could also be the file name of a copy of the partition, such as that made with dd.

--superblock

Prints information about the filesystem from the superblock.

--journal --superblock

Prints information about the journal from the journal's superblock.

--inode #

Prints the information from the inode number of the filesystem given, such as "--inode 2".

--block #

Prints the contents of the block, called as "--block 9652".

--restore-file path/to/deleted/file

Attempts to restore the file which was deleted at the given filename, called as "--restore-file dirname/filename".

--restore-inode #

Used to restore inodes by number, called as "--restore-inode 2569".
Also accepts a list of inodes separated by only commas, such as "--restore-inode 2569,5692,6925".

--restore-files filename

Restores a list of files. First, construct a list of files in the same style as would be
used in the --restore-file option, and save it to the file "filename".
Then, this option may be used to attempt to restore those files with a single call to extundelete.
This form also reduces redundancy from multiple calls parsing the journal multiple times.

--restore-all

Restores all files possible to undelete to their names before deletion, when possible. Other files are restored to a filename like "file.NNNN".

--restore-directory path/of/directory

Restores all files possible to link to specified directory to their names before deletion, when possible.

-j journal_dev

Specifies the device that is the external journal of the file system.

-b block_number

Specifies the block number of the backup superblock to be used when opening the file system.

-B block_size

Specifies the block size of the partition to be used when opening the file system.

--before date

Only restore files deleted before the date specified, which should be in the form of the number of seconds since the UNIX epoch. Use a shell command like
$ date -d "Aug 1 9:02" +%s
to convert a human-readable date to the proper format. The conversion from the number of seconds to a readable format may be found by using either of the following:
$ date -d@1234567890
$ perl -le "print scalar localtime 1234567890"

--after date

Only restore files deleted after the date specified, which should be in the form of the number of seconds since the UNIX epoch.
See the notes for the --before option for more information.

extundelete was written by Nic Case <number9652@users.sourceforge.net> Copyright (C) 2009, 2012

This manual page was written by Elías Alejandro Año Mendoza <ealmdz@gmail.com>, for the Debian project (and may be used by others).