In the digital age, we capture countless photos on our phones and cameras that get stored digitally. At times, some of those photos need to be deleted to clear up storage space or for privacy reasons. When a photo is deleted, it may seem like it’s gone forever. However, that’s not always the case.
Understanding what happens to deleted photos and whether they can be recovered is important for properly securing sensitive images. The topic also provides insight into how digital data storage works. This article will examine what happens when photos are deleted from devices and cloud services, looking at how deleted data can potentially be recovered.
Saving vs Deleting Photos
When you save a photo, the photo file data remains stored on your device or cloud storage. Saving a photo simply keeps it accessible in a certain album or folder. The original photo data stays intact.
Deleting a photo removes it from the folder or album where it was saved. However, the original photo data may still exist in your storage device or cloud account after deletion. The difference is that the photo becomes inaccessible from the folder or software where you deleted it. The data still physically exists, but the links allowing you to access it are removed.
Deleting does not inherently destroy or erase the underlying photo data. For example, deleting a photo from your iPhone’s Camera Roll does not wipe that data from your iCloud storage or iPhone’s internal memory [1]. The data remains stored until overwritten or wipe.
When Photos Are Deleted
There are a few common ways that photos get deleted from devices and cloud storage services:
On smartphones, users can delete photos directly from the camera roll or gallery app. This removes the photo from the device storage. However, if the photos were synced to a cloud service like Google Photos or iCloud, a copy may still exist in the cloud. Photos deleted from cloud services themselves are removed more permanently.
On computers, deleting photos from local folders or drives will send them to the recycle bin or trash folder. From there, users need to empty the recycle bin to fully remove the files. Deleted photos may be recoverable with data recovery software until overwritten by new data.
Cloud storage services like Google Photos and iCloud allow bulk deletion of photos. These platforms often save deleted photos for a short period like 30 days in case users want to restore them. After that, deleted cloud photos are permanently removed from servers. Services like Google Takeout can also allow users to delete online photo archives.
On photo sharing sites or social media, deleting a photo removes it from public view immediately. However, deleted photos may remain on company servers for some time. The platform policies dictate how soon servers scrub deleted photo data. In some cases, other users may still have copies of deleted photos.
Overall, while casual users think photos are deleted instantly, in reality the photo data can persist in various places until actively overwritten or scrubbed. Understanding the difference between local device storage and cloud servers is key to knowing where your deleted photos could still reside.
Recovering Recently Deleted Photos
When photos are first deleted on a device, they are often moved to a temporary “trash” or “recently deleted” folder. This allows you to quickly recover them if the deletion was accidental. For example, on an iPhone, deleted photos sit in the “Recently Deleted” album for up to 40 days before being permanently erased [1]. On Android, the Google Photos trash holds deleted items for 60 days [2].
So if you act quickly after deletion, you can often recover photos and videos by restoring them from this temporary trash folder. However, this recovery window is usually limited to 30-60 days max. After that time, deleted items are permanently erased to free up storage space.
To recover recently deleted photos, you would go to your device’s photo gallery or the app’s trash folder and select the “Recover” option. Acting fast is key though, as the deleted files do get permanently removed after a certain number of days.
Permanent Deletion
When photos are deleted from a device or cloud storage, they are often still recoverable if acted on quickly. However, permanent deletion means the photo data is completely erased and can no longer be recovered through normal means.
On an iPhone or iPad, when photos are deleted from the Photos app, they go to the Recently Deleted folder where they remain for 30 days before being permanently deleted (1). To fully remove photos right away, users must go to the Recently Deleted folder and delete photos again, bypassing the 30 day window. At this point, the photos are permanently gone from the device storage.
On Android devices, deleting photos from the Google Photos app sends them to the trash where they sit for 60 days before being permanently erased (2). Users can manually empty the trash to permanently delete items sooner. When photos are permanently deleted from Android devices or cloud storage, the data is completely removed and irrecoverable through standard means.
Permanent deletion implies the data is completely overwritten or rendered unrecoverable, even using data recovery software or services. So once photos are permanently deleted from a device or cloud storage, there is typically no way to ever access or restore them again.
Where Deleted Photo Data Goes
When you delete a photo from your device, the photo’s digital data does not instantly vanish. The data remains on the physical storage device until it is overwritten by new data.
On a local storage device like a hard drive or phone’s internal storage, the operating system simply marks the space occupied by the deleted photo as available. The actual data remains intact until another app saves new data to that same location. This allows recently deleted photos to often be recovered using data recovery software, as long as the storage space has not been overwritten.
With cloud storage services like Google Photos or iCloud, deleting a photo tells the service to no longer display the photo in your account. However, cloud services keep redundant copies of all data on multiple servers, so the photo may still exist in their systems. Cloud services eventually delete data marked for deletion, but have policies on how long they retain it.
According to Google’s support page, “The device copy of the deleted photo or video may be deleted once backup is re-enabled and the device has re-synced with Google Photos” [1]. So Google Photos keeps deleted data for a period before permanent removal.
Physical Storage Devices
When photos are deleted from physical storage devices like hard drives or SD cards, the actual photo data still remains on the device until it gets overwritten by new data. The pointers to the data get removed, making the photos seem “deleted,” but the 1s and 0s that make up the photo files are still intact on the physical storage media.
According to Salvagedata, “When you delete data, the operating system does not actually scrub the data clean. Instead, it marks the space the file takes up as free space available for new data.” So the deleted photos still physically exist in the memory blocks on the device until those blocks get overwritten.
The amount of time before deleted photos get overwritten depends on the storage usage. If you continue saving new files, the deleted data will get overwritten relatively quickly. But if your device has a lot of unused space, deleted files can persist untouched for quite some time. So it’s often possible to use data recovery tools to scan the raw storage and retrieve deleted photos, even if you emptied the recycle bin. But the chances diminish over time as new data gets written.
According to an article on Google’s support site, “All digital storage devices function this way. Deleted files aren’t actually erased from the physical medium until they are overwritten by new data.” So the same concept applies to SSDs, USB drives, external hard drives, and more when it comes to retrieving deleted photo data (source).
Cloud Storage Services
When photos are uploaded to cloud storage services like Google Photos, iCloud, Dropbox, etc., deleting a photo does not necessarily remove it right away. These services often retain deleted data for a period of time before permanently erasing it.
For example, Google Photos stores deleted photos in their trash folder for 60 days before removing them entirely (1). iCloud also keeps deleted photos in its Recently Deleted folder for up to 30 days (2). This allows users a window of time to recover accidentally deleted photos.
However, once that retention period is up, the photos are permanently deleted from the cloud servers. At that point, the photos would no longer be recoverable through the cloud service itself without accessing a backup.
So in summary, cloud services do not instantly delete photos. But after a certain time passes, usually 30-60 days, they will be permanently removed and unrecoverable through that service.
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Preventing Data Recovery
There are a few ways you can help prevent deleted photos from being recovered on both physical storage devices and cloud storage services:
On your phone or computer’s local storage:
- Use a secure delete tool – Specialized tools like EaseUS BitWiper can overwrite deleted files multiple times to prevent recovery.
- Encrypt your storage device – Encrypting your hard drive or SD card can make it impossible to recover deleted files if you delete the encryption key.
- Factory reset the device – Doing a full factory reset/format on your phone or computer will overwrite all deleted files.
On cloud storage:
- Manually delete files from your account – Cloud services may retain deleted files for some time, so manually deleting them reduces this window.
- Contact support to request permanent deletion – Most cloud services can fully purge deleted files from their servers if you request it.
- Revoke app permissions – Restricting third-party apps’ access to your cloud storage can prevent them from backing up your deleted photos.
While not foolproof, combining multiple techniques like encryption and secure deletion makes recovering deleted photos much more difficult.
Conclusion
Deleting photos does not completely erase them right away. When deleted from a device or cloud storage, photo data still exists but is marked as free space to be overwritten in the future. However, deleted photos can often be recovered as long as they have not been overwritten. To prevent data recovery, it’s important to securely wipe storage devices or use cloud services with robust deletion policies. The key takeaways are:
- Deleted photos are recoverable until their storage space is reused and overwritten.
- Photos deleted from devices can be recovered with data recovery software if the space hasn’t been overwritten.
- Deleted cloud photos may be recoverable for a limited time depending on the provider’s policies.
- Permanently deleting photos requires overwriting the storage space multiple times.
- Understanding photo deletion helps manage privacy and prevents unwanted data recovery.
In summary, deleted photos are not immediately erased, but they can still be permanently deleted by overwriting their data storage space.