If they aren’t in the recycle bin, it must have been a hard delete. Check the downloads tab on your browser. It has a history list of your downloads, segregated datewise. The download link will also be there. You can click on it and re-download it. The link should be active since you paid for it.

You can restore the system too but if you have recently downloaded any other stuff, you’ll lose those. You’ll have to manually select files that don’t need delete during system restore….but that could be too much work.

There is free recover software like Recuva. At your own risk, but ive good experiences with it. Dont install or add files till you finished the recover attempts, that can corrupt more files. It can be a tedious but long process but its worth a try. In future, store them on a cloud (Google Drive or Outlook OneDrive or an usb stick as backup option.

I was able to figure out and re-download 9 files from the sites. I’ll just hope there weren’t any others that were important. @AK The downloads tab is where I deleted them from – in the upper right corner where Favorites and settings are located. I’m confused because if I had a pdf, doesn’t that mean they’re downloaded? I thought what I deleted were just links that I didn’t need anymore. <sigh> I dunno. I’m not a tech person. Anyway, thank you!

I’ve used ccleaner for years and trust the software/company, but don’t think I want to risk making things worse since I’m not tech-wise. Thanks for the suggestion, though. I’d forgotten about Recuva.

I’m confused because if I had a pdf, doesn’t that mean they’re downloaded?

If they are in the downloads tab, you can see where they are with right-click “Show in folder” (some similar choice, depends on which browser).

If you are viewing them in the browser and not explicitly requesting a download, they are downloaded but buried in a cache folder for the browser’s use.

When my browser displays PDFs, I look for a Save button to explicitly download them to my Downloads folder.