Trash pictures, like any other files deleted on a computer, can be stored in a few different places before being permanently deleted. When you first delete a file, it is not actually erased from your hard drive right away. Instead, it is simply marked as deleted and removed from your file system. The actual data remains on your hard drive in varying states until it is eventually overwritten by new data. Let’s take a look at the main places trash pictures can be stored after deletion.
Computer Recycle Bin
When you first delete a file on your computer, it will go to the Recycle Bin on Windows or Trash on Mac OS. This allows you to easily restore deleted files if you change your mind soon after deletion. Pictures in the Recycle Bin remain intact and can be restored to their original location with a few clicks. However, the Recycle Bin has limited storage space. Once it reaches maximum capacity, your computer will start deleting the oldest files in the Recycle Bin to make room for newly deleted items. So you can’t rely on a file staying in the Recycle Bin indefinitely.
Unallocated Space on Hard Drive
Once a file is deleted from the Recycle Bin or Trash, it is no longer accessible through your file system. However, its data remains on the hard drive in unallocated space until that section of the hard drive is overwritten by new information. Unallocated space contains deleted files and parts of files that are marked as inaccessible by your operating system. The contents remain intact until replaced with new data. A trash picture deleted from the Recycle Bin can stay in unallocated space unchanged for a long time if that area of the hard drive is not reused. Data recovery software can scan unallocated space and restore deleted files if they have not been corrupted or overwritten.
System Restore Points
System restore points are snapshots of your computer’s state at a certain point in time, including all files stored on the hard drive. They allow you to restore your system to a previous state if problems occur. If a trash picture was present on your computer when a system restore point was created, then it can potentially be recovered from that point. However, system restore does not save previous versions of files indefinitely. It will delete older restore points to make space for newer ones. So a deleted photo will only remain accessible in a system restore point for as long as that point is retained.
Temporary Internet Files
When you view pictures or images online in your browser, they are temporarily stored in your device’s local cache to enable faster loading on subsequent views. These temporary internet files remain on your hard drive until deleted by the browser or overwritten by other site data. So if you viewed a trash picture online, it may have been cached by your browser and could remain in that state until that part of the cache is cleared out. However, browsers only store a certain amount of site data before deleting old temporary files, so this method of recovery depends on the trash picture still being cached.
Cloud Storage
If you have an online cloud storage account connected to your device, such as iCloud, Google Photos, Dropbox or OneDrive, any pictures you store in the cloud will remain there when deleted from local storage. This includes trash pictures. Cloud storage apps will retain previous versions of your files for a certain amount of time, allowing you to restore them if deleted recently. However, this is only the case if the picture was uploaded to the cloud in the first place. And cloud storage services will eventually delete older file versions permanently.
Web Browser History
Web browsers store information about sites visited in their history, allowing users to see images they’ve viewed recently even if the actual files are deleted. So if a trash picture was part of a web page you browsed to earlier, it may still appear in your history for a period of time. However, browsers clear out history after a while, so this method only works if the picture was viewed very recently.
Backups
If you have a regular backup routine for your computer files, then deleted trash pictures may exist in one of your backups. Backup software and services will store copies of your system and files as they existed at the time of the backup. So if the photo was still present on a date when your system was backed up, it can potentially be recovered from that backup. This relies on you having a backup that isn’t too old however. Most users will periodically delete old backups to save storage space.
Email Services
If you emailed a trash picture to someone as an attachment, sent it via a cloud-based email service like Gmail or Outlook.com, or uploaded it to an email account, the picture will reside on that email provider’s servers. It can potentially be recovered as long as the email wasn’t deleted. Webmail services often retain deleted emails for a recovery period before permanent deletion. Email attachments also get cached locally on devices when emails are viewed and synced.
Messaging Apps
Similar to email, pictures shared via messaging apps may be stored by the app provider after deletion from your device. Messaging services need to cache shared media on their servers in order to synchronize communications across devices. If a trash picture was texted or shared in an app like WhatsApp or Facebook Messenger, remnants of it could remain on company servers. However, the major messaging providers delete content after a retention period due to privacy concerns.
Social Media Services
Uploading images to social networks will store them on that company’s servers until removed. So if you posted a trash picture on a site like Facebook, Twitter, Instagram or Snapchat, then deleted it from your device, the image may still be recoverable from social media servers. These platforms generally retain content for some time after deletion, though often not indefinitely. And social sites maintain caches of images to enable quick loading, providing another avenue for forensic recovery.
ISP or Cell Provider Caches
Some of the web traffic from your device passes through caches maintained by your Internet service provider or mobile carrier. ISPs will temporarily store images, web pages, files and other internet content to optimize bandwidth usage across their networks. These provider caches capture snapshots of activity that may persist for a short period after access. If a trash picture was viewed or transmitted by your device recently, the ISP may have records of it in their temporary caches before it is deleted or overwritten.
Peer-to-Peer Networks
If trash pictures were shared over peer-to-peer networks like Torrents or file-sharing programs, other users across those networks may have copies stored locally or in their own cloud accounts and devices. Once content spreads over peer-to-peer networks, it can be difficult to ensure complete deletion across all nodes and users. While you may remove the files from your own computer, other parties could retain copies of the pictures indefinitely.
External Storage Drives
If you stored trash pictures on an external hard drive, USB flash drive or memory card, deleting them from your main computer will not remove them from the external storage device. The picture files will remain intact in unallocated space on those devices until overwritten by new data. So anyone gaining physical access to the drives could forensically recover deleted trash pictures using data recovery tools.
Printed Copies
Printed photographs and documents containing trash pictures will persist in physical form even when you delete the digital files from your devices and accounts. As long as copies were printed or transferred to physical media like photo paper, negatives or microfilm, the images could be manually scanned and digitized again by anyone accessing those physical prints.
Web Archives
There are various web archives that crawl and store old versions of websites, allowing you to see how pages looked at points in the past. These archives capture snapshots of page content including images. So if your trash picture was displayed on a public or cached website and archived by one of these crawler services years ago, it could conceivably be searched and surfaced from old web records.
Conclusions
In summary, deleted trash pictures can remain stored in varied locations that are often outside an individual’s direct control:
- Recycle Bin/Trash and unallocated drive space
- Cloud storage services
- ISP and cell provider caches
- Messaging, social media and email provider servers
- Web browser and application caches/histories
- Backups and system restore points
- Peer-to-peer networks
- External storage devices
- Printed copies
- Web archives and caches
The safest assumption is that any image transmitted online or stored digitally could be recovered by a determined forensic expert even after you delete it. Using secure deletion tools can overwrite sensitive pictures making recovery difficult. But preventing proliferation across multiple services, caches and devices provides stronger security against their restoration from deleted status.