If you suspect that someone has gained unauthorized access to your Windows operating system computer, there are steps you can follow to verify and determine if this is the case. In this tutorial, you will see a few simple methods to check if someone has accessed your computer.
Normally, if you don't want another person to have access to your computer or laptop, the easiest way is to set a strong authentication password for your user account. This way, it will be quite challenging for someone else to access your personal files on the laptop or computer.
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How to Check If Someone Has Accessed Your Computer (Windows)
When you suspect that someone has walked into your computer and you want to find out which folders, files or documents they have accessed, the easiest way is to check the Recent list Items.
Check the list of recently accessed files on Windows 11.
To access the list of recently accessed files on a computer with an operating system Windows, follow the steps in the guide below.
"Recent Items” is most often found in the sidebar on the left side of the File Explorer, where the folders are “Desktop”, “Documents”, “Downloads”. If you don't have a direct shortcut to "Recent Items", you can access the folder "Recent Items"From"File Explorer". All you have to do is enter the address below in the top bar and press “Enter".
%APPDATA%\Microsoft\Windows\Recent Items
In the list of recently accessed files and folders, click on "Date modified" to sort them by date. Also from here you can click on the arrow next to "Date modified" to select a specific date or time interval.
If you notice that there are files and locations in this list that you haven't accessed, someone has definitely walked into your computer.
Check the web browsing history in Chrome, Edge, or Firefox.
By checking your web browsing history you can find out if another person has been at your computer. In most Chrome browser configurations, Edge or Firefox, they keep in chronological order the web addresses that have been accessed. Less so when the browser was opened in Incognito or "Private" mode.
For most Internet browsers it is enough to press the key combination "Ctrl + h” to open your web browsing history. So open Chrome, Firefox or Edge, then press the keys "Ctrl + h” and see which web addresses have been accessed from your computer.
Event Viewer can help you find out if someone has accessed your computer.
OS Windows automatically records logs containing various key activities, including login processes. Via Event Viewer, it is possible to identify the exact moment of opening the computer, having access to detailed information about the date and time when the login took place.
To access Event Viewer and see the date and time someone logged in on the computer, follow the steps in the guide below:
1. Open “Start” then search for “Event Viewer” and open the utility.
2. In the bar on the left, access: Event Viewer (Local) > Windows Logs > Security. In the list of events, those with IDs must be identified: 4624.
Events with ID 4624 are those that correspond to successful logins on your computer Windows.
The above are three simple methods by which you can find out if someone has walked into your computer, but the first two methods are easy to erase if that person knows how to clear browsing history or records from "Recent Items".
This tutorial is made on the operating system Windows 11, but in the same way you can check if someone has accessed your computer or laptop with the system Windows 10.
