Deleted files and emptied trash. Crap

[Keith62]

I know I’m an idiot. Don’t need to be told. I thought I saved project completely to external hard drive. It wasn’t until I took a closer look that I found parts of the project wasn’t there. 
 

Is there a way to retrieve deleted files that were also deleted from trash?

[Pšenda]

Of course it depends on the OS you are using. At least for Windows, there are many applications for recovering deleted files - both simple ones that can be used to recover freshly deleted files, and "professional" ones. I personally use Recuva, but it wants to recover immediately after deletion, before the deleted areas are permanently destroyed by overwriting other data.

[rvst]

36 minutes ago, Keith62 said:

I know I’m an idiot. Don’t need to be told. I thought I saved project completely to external hard drive. It wasn’t until I took a closer look that I found parts of the project wasn’t there. 
 

Is there a way to retrieve deleted files that were also deleted from trash?

There are a number of commercial and free tools that allow you to recover files. Your mileage may vary depending on whether or not you have written data to your disk after the files have been deleted. You didn't specify if you're on Mac or Windows. Here's a link to a free one for Windows: https://www.iobit.com/en/iobitundelete.php

You should stop using your computer until you have recovered the files. 

When you delete a file, the actual data isn't deleted, just the "map" that strings together the various blocks that makeup the file. Those blocks are marked as free space, but the data is not deleted, so it can be recovered by specialist software. 

However, the more you write to the drive, the likelier the operating system is to choose one of those disk blocks that contain your data and has been marked as free space, permanently destroying that file.

So stop using your computer, download some recovery software and your file might be recoverable

[Keith62]

I’m sorry. I’m using IPad Pro

[rvst]

19 minutes ago, Keith62 said:

I’m sorry. I’m using IPad Pro

Here's a list of tools for iPad: https://www.handyrecovery.com/best-ipad-data-recovery-software/

They're all commercial, but several have free trials that can recover the data. The first one in the list can recover up to 500MB in the trial version

[Keith62]

Thank you so much