It is a little difficult to offer detailed advice because you have not identified what machine and which operating system is involved (the answers will differ depending on whether you dealing with a PC or a Mac). However, I can offer you the theory and you can make a better decision about how far you wish to pursue it. Although the use of the delete key appears to remove a given character or file from the screen, it does not actually erase it from the machine. To manage memory allocation, your computer uses a directory of data addresses. When you "delete" a file, the addresses that file occupied are freed for reuse. In due course, as a user accumulates more data for storage, the addresses will be overwritten but, depending on how much new data is to be retained, this may take weeks or months. Hence, you can recover blocks of data from your machine's memory during this "waiting" period. But the processes of recovery involved are quite demanding and require expertise. It is not simply a case of downloading a conveniently available package and waiting while it searches your memory. So it might involve considerable effort on your part to master the processes and involve you monopolising the machine for significant periods of time. While I sympathise in your general intention to monitor the activities of your children (the internet mirrors the best and worst of all cultures), you may well have to rely on less hands-on approaches to guide their social development into adults.