I created a blank default sidescroller game a few days and decided to delete it today for space. I right clicked on the project and click delete, then noticed every folder and file disappear one by one until nothing was left. Fortunately my project was saved on a external hard drive but my other folders and files wasn’t so lucky. Just wanted to know if I’m the only one that has experienced this. I’m using Windows 10 as well.
Hi ChrisFiasco,
Did you right click on your project in the Launcher and select “delete?” Because expected behavior would be that your Project would be deleted from the Launcher menu as well as your entire Project Folder in the Unreal Projects directory.
Are you saying other Projects were deleted as well? If so, again, did you delete the project through the Launcher or directly from the Unreal Projects folder in Windows explorer?
Lastly, did you check the recycle bin to recover the files you unintentionally deleted?
I deleted the project from my Desktop and then right clicked inside the launcher to delete the blank project. After that everything on my desktop got deleted, including things that had nothing to do with Unreal.
I have not heard of this happening before. Typically you would store your projects in My Documents>Unreal Projects. However deleting projects through the launcher doesn’t result in deleting other projects so even if you kept your projects on your desktop, I don’t know what would cause this.
In any event, were you able to recover files from your recycle or trash bin?
Thanks for the additional information. I have never heard of such a thing but I will run some tests next week to try and reproduce the issue.
In the meantime, can you create some test docs, projects, etc for your desktop and see if you can consistently reproduce the issue. If so, please provide repro steps we can follow to reproduce the problem on our end -thanks!
*Make sure you do not have anything important on your desktop when testing
That’s the thing, everything on the desktop was removed entirely. Nothing ever went to the recycling bin. I only had 2 projects on the desktop. A project I’m working on and just a default SideScroller that I never touched. I could understand the launcher removed the 2 projects, but it removed files that had nothing to do with Unreal.
Maybe the launcher just doesn’t like the idea of deleting a project outside of the launcher? Maybe everything was moved somewhere else on my pc?
I did have the project I was working on backed up, I was just curious if anyone else had this issue. Thanks for the replies.
This just happened to me… I was testing a ueproject that I downloaded to my desktop and when I deleted it I lost ALL of my project files, they were completely removed from the disk (concepts, audio, script, models, psds, txt docs) I had 2 projects and several videos from me on my desktop and lost around 200 hours or 3 months of work 
good job unreal.
I had all of my project files on my desktop and didn’t make a single backup in the past 3 months which was pretty dumb of me but I’d never thought they’d just get magically removed.
Please fix this so other people don’t run into the same problem, many people have valuable files on their desktop.
Hello ,
I have a couple of questions about this issue for you, to help me investigate this issue further.
- What Engine version was the project that caused the issue on?
- Could you post your DxDiag for your PC?
- Can you consistently reproduce the issue? If so, can you please provide repro steps we can follow to reproduce the problem on our end?
Thank you!
This issue just hit me and I am not happy. I downloaded a friends 4.16.1 project to my desktop. I noticed the project was found by the Epic Launcher. I right clicked the project, In the epic launcher, and selected delete as i had another version in my documents/unreal projects/… folder. All of the sudden all files, folders, and shortcuts were deleted from my desktop. They are not in my recycle bin. They are gone. How do I get them back???
If you run into this issue STOP EVERYTHING. Download and install a data recovery tool to a drive other than the one your missing data was on. I used Recuva (not advocating, just the one I used). Run the tool on the drive where your data was. Hope it works.
In my case I recovered 98% of files. I lost some due to overwrites when I was testing repro cases. Keep in mind that spinning disk drives can have data recovered but solid state drives may not.
EPIC, please fix this issue. It was a rough night!
Oh maan! Same thing happened to me! I lost everything! Everything related to my game and every other thing what had nothing to do with EPIC. around 700GB of my data. Everything is lost. My pictures, my school documents, project I have been working for a year. All my games and software were removed. I am 30 years old male and I am sitting and crying like a baby. everything is gone, Jesus. I just created project in my desktop and hit delete it from the Epic launcher. and it wiped my whole disk C:.
Since f# when your engine has capabilities to ducking delete files which has nothing to do with your engine?
i cant even restore. EPIC I hate you sooo much right, I wanna fly back in time and f# kill myself the day I installed your engine. just f# you guys from my whole heart. just F# you.
This just happened to me in the last hour. I was making space on my C: drive because everyone knows…junk accumulates over time. I then proceeded on to throwing away some older Unreal Engine versions away from the epic launcher. After this, I proceeded to delete some projects that I did no longer need after which I suddenly lost a lot of projects I did not want to lose. I went investigating the folder itself and 99% of my 3d files were gone (including files that had nothing to do with Unreal).
Unreal was installed on C: while my files that got deleted were on D: In a separate projects folder. As far as I have seen I’ve lost nothing for files in my 3d projects folder.
I am now running the Recuva tool as suggested above and I am hopeful I can recover as many files as possible.
4.19.2 wtf epic. I just lost 6 months worth of work on a project unrelated to Unreal. good job screwing me over.