Losing photos can be devastating, especially if they hold sentimental value or capture important life events. Fortunately, there are several ways to try to recover lost photos depending on how they were lost.
How do photos get lost?
Photos can get lost or deleted in a variety of ways:
- Accidental deletion from your camera, computer, or storage devices
- Formatting or wiping storage devices without first backing up photos
- Hardware failure or corruption such as hard drive crashes, SD card corruption, or camera failure
- Theft of cameras or devices containing photos
- Sync errors and bugs when backing up to cloud services
- Ransomware or malware attacks that encrypt or delete files
- Natural disasters like fires or floods
Knowing how your photos were lost or deleted will help determine the best recovery method.
How can I recover deleted photos from my computer?
If you accidentally deleted photos from your computer, you may be able to recover them from the recycle bin if they were just recently deleted. However, photos deleted from the recycle bin or through permanent deletion shortcuts cannot be recovered through this method.
In those cases, you’ll need data recovery software designed to scan your hard drive and external storage devices for deleted photo files that can still be recovered. Some options include:
- PhotoRec – Free, open source data recovery software that finds deleted photos based on the file signature rather than file name.
- Stellar Photo Recovery – Paid software focused specifically on recovering photo, video and audio files on Windows and Mac systems.
- EaseUS Data Recovery Wizard – Paid comprehensive data recovery software with tools optimized for recovering image, video and audio files.
- Disk Drill – Paid recovery software for Windows and Mac able to reconstruct up to 500 file formats from residual data on your drive.
These tools scan your hard drive sector by sector to find recoverable photo data. The sooner you run the recovery after deletion, the higher the chance of recovering your lost photos.
Tips for recovering deleted computer photos:
- Stop using the device with deleted photos to prevent overwriting residual data.
- Try data recovery software as soon as possible.
- Scan and recover deleted photos to another drive.
- Use read-only recovery tools whenever possible to avoid further data loss.
- Store recovered photos on a different drive than the one you’re scanning.
How can I get back deleted photos from my phone?
As with computers, you may be able to recover recently deleted photos from your phone’s local trash or recycle bin if they were just accidentally erased. However, your options are more limited if the photos were deleted from the recycle bin or through a permanent deletion process.
For phones, data recovery apps provide the best method for retrieving deleted photos. Some top options include:
- DigDeep Image Recovery – Recovers deleted photos from Android devices by scanning internal and external storage media.
- iMobie PhoneRescue – Restores deleted iPhone photos from device backups or iCloud.
- Disk Drill – Available for both iPhone and Android and reconstructs lost photos from internal and external device memory.
- PhoDroid – Android app that finds deleted photos if they haven’t been overwritten.
Most phone data recovery apps allow you to preview found photos before paying to recover them. However, free phone recovery options are more limited.
Tips for recovering deleted phone photos:
- Avoid using space-occupying apps after deletion to prevent photo overwriting.
- Recover from a recent backup if available.
- Download phone recovery apps quickly for the best chance of retrieving photos.
- Allow the app to scan all possible storage locations including external SD cards.
Can I recover photos after a factory reset?
Recovering photos after a factory reset is difficult but sometimes possible depending on your device and the steps taken before the reset.
For phones, the only hope for recovering post-reset photos is if you had automatic backups enabled in iCloud or Google Photos. You can restore these cloud backups after the reset to get your photos back.
On a computer, you have better chances recovering photos post factory reset if:
- You know the previous folder locations of the deleted photos.
- You scanned the hard drive for deleted data prior to the reset.
- You removed the hard drive before the reset and scan it separately with data recovery software.
However, a full factory reset that overwrites all data makes photo recovery unlikely unless you have a backup.
Tips for recovering post-reset photos:
- Use cloud syncing services to store photos.
- Manually backup photos to external drives.
- Scan and recover deleted data prior to the reset.
- Reset the device without reformatting if possible.
Can you recover photos after a system restore?
System restores can make it tricky to recover deleted photos because they roll a device’s storage back to an earlier state. But it is still possible in some cases.
If you have backups from after the photo deletion but before the system restore point, you may be able to recover the photos from those backups.
Phone photos deleted after a system restore are unlikely to be recovered unless you enabled cloud syncing which keeps copies despite the restore.
On computers, data recovery software that finds photo remnants based on file signatures rather than file paths has the best chance of retrieving photos lost after a system restore. It depends on how much data was overwritten.
Tips for recovering photos after system restore:
- Use cloud backup services like iCloud or Google Photos.
- Restore from a backup made after photo deletion but before the system restore point.
- Scan storage drives with advanced data recovery tools that search based on file signatures.
How do I recover corrupted photos?
Photo corruption prevents your device from properly reading the photo files but doesn’t always completely destroy the data. This gives you a good chance of recovery.
For corrupted photos on removable media like SD cards or external drives, try copying the photos to your computer using data recovery software that can reconstruct corrupt image files. Some options are:
- Recuva – Free corrupted photo recovery tool for Windows.
- Ontrack EasyRecovery – Paid software that repairs corrupted photos based on file headers and metadata.
- Photorec – Open source recovery tool that reconstructs corrupt photo files based on residual data.
Corrupted photos on internal device drives like hard disks, smartphones, or cameras require connecting the device to a computer to recover the images.
Tips for recovering corrupted photos:
- Avoid further writes to corrupted storage media.
- Use read-only recovery tools when possible.
- Recover photos to separate external storage.
- Look for recovery software with corrupt photo repair capabilities.
Can you recover photos after a hard drive crash?
Hard drive crashes lead to critical data loss but recovering photos from the failed drive is often possible. However, you have to act fast and avoid further using the crashed drive.
First, remove the hard drive from the crashed computer or device and connect it to another working computer as an external drive. Then scan it with data recovery software designed to retrieve files from failed drives. Some top options include:
- EaseUS Data Recovery Wizard – Has tools optimized for crashed drive recovery.
- Stellar Data Recovery – Photo recovery service designed for recovering data after hardware crashes.
- Disk Drill – Scans and restores photo data from crashed drives.
The more you use a crashed drive, the worse the corruption gets. So it’s critical to recover photos quickly without making further writes to the failed drive.
Tips for recovering photos from a crashed hard drive:
- Stop using the crashed drive immediately.
- Remove it from the computer and connect via external access tools.
- Scan and recover crashed drive photos with data recovery software.
- Avoid saving recovered photos back to the crashed drive.
Can you recover photos after reinstalling Windows?
Reinstalling Windows or your operating system deletes system files and settings but doesn’t always affect personal files like photos. So recovery is often possible.
If you kept the original hard drive partitions and reinstalled Windows in place, data recovery tools may be able to retrieve deleted photos by scanning for residual data in their previous locations. This method works best if you reinstall quickly before older data gets overwritten.
However, if you deleted the existing partitions and reformatted the drive before reinstalling Windows, the photos are less likely to be recovered. You’ll need advanced data recovery tools to carve residual photo data from the drive sectors.
Backing up photos to another location before reinstalling Windows is the best way to ensure you don’t lose them during operating system refresh.
Tips for recovering photos after reinstalling Windows:
- Use data recovery tools to scan previous photo storage locations on the hard drive.
- Avoid saving new data to the drive to prevent overwriting.
- Recover photos sooner rather than later.
- Keep disk formatting to a minimum.
How can I recover photos after a ransomware attack?
Ransomware is a type of malware that encrypts files on your device and demands payment for decryption. Photos are often encrypted along with other files.
If you don’t have unaffected backups to restore from, decryption is the only option. There are some ransomware decryption tools available but they don’t work for every strain. Try tools like:
- Avast Decryption Tools – Free decryption tools for some strains.
- Kaspersky Ransomware Decryptor – Free decryptor for some ransomware variants.
- Emsisoft Decrypter – Free ransomware decryption tools.
If decryption isn’t possible, you may be able to recover some photos by scanning the drive for residual data left behind after the encryption. But there’s no guarantee for this method.
Preventing ransomware using antivirus, firewalls, and backups provides the best protection against losing files.
Tips for recovering photos after ransomware:
- Use reputable decryption tools but avoid paying ransoms.
- Scan your drive with data recovery software to carve out remnants of photos.
- Restore from backups taken before the attack.
- Strengthen security to prevent future ransomware infections.
Can you recover photos from a dead phone?
Photos stored on the internal memory of a dead phone that won’t turn on are difficult but sometimes possible to recover.
First, rule out any chance of reviving the dead phone with a factory reset or new battery. If the phone is completely non-functional, your options are limited to scanning the storage chip directly.
You’ll need to remove the memory chip from the phone motherboard and connect it to a USB chip reader that allows scanning with data recovery software like:
- Remo Recover – Scans chips and rebuilds photo files based on residual data.
- Stellar Data Recovery – Has advanced tools for recovering data from damaged mobile devices.
- Disk Drill – Scans internal and external memory chips for lost photo data.
This method depends heavily on the extent of physical phone damage. The less damaged the storage chip, the better chance of photo recovery.
Tips for recovering photos from a dead phone:
- Backup photos regularly to prevent data loss.
- Store photos in the cloud.
- Remove and scan storage chips from damaged phones quickly.
- Know that significant physical damage makes recovery unlikely.
Recovering lost or deleted photos: Summary
While the exact photo recovery methods differ depending on how you lost your images, the general process involves:
- Stopping all use of the device with deleted photos to prevent overwriting.
- Scanning storage media with photo recovery software or apps.
- Saving recovered photos to separate safe storage.
The sooner you take action, the better your chances. Advanced recovery tools can resurrect photos by reconstructing residual data before it gets overwritten.
Backing up photos provides protection against loss. Store backups on external drives and cloud services in case you ever need to recover photos.