With digital photography now ubiquitous and most photos stored digitally, understanding what happens to deleted photos is more important than ever in the digital age. This article will provide an overview of how photos are stored, the basics of deleting photos both from devices and cloud storage, photo recovery options, and tips for maintaining privacy. We’ll cover where deleted photos go when removed from cameras, phones, computers, and cloud services. In today’s digital world, photos contain sensitive information, so it’s critical to understand the fate of deleted images to properly manage privacy.
Photo Storage Basics
Digital photos are made up of image data and metadata stored as computer files. The image data contains the actual pixels that make up the photo, encoded in a format like JPEG or RAW. The metadata contains additional information about the photo like the camera settings, timestamp, location, etc. This metadata is stored in standards like EXIF that allow it to be interpreted by photo software.
On devices like phones, cameras, and computers, photos are stored in specific folders and accessed through the filesystem. The filesystem keeps track of where files are located on the physical storage media. When you view your photos on a device, you are accessing them through the filesystem.
Cloud services provide online storage and backup for photos. When you upload photos to a service like Google Photos or iCloud, copies of the image files are transmitted over the internet and stored on remote servers operated by the service provider. The photos can then be accessed from any device through an app or web interface. Cloud services may also analyze photos and generate metadata like search keywords to make the photos more easily discoverable.
Both local device storage and cloud services aim to keep photos accessible over time. Device capacity is finite while cloud capacity can scale. Cloud services facilitate sharing and access across devices. But only local storage is fully under your control and independent of an external provider. Many people use a combination of local and cloud photo storage for redundancy.
Deleting Photos
When you delete a photo on your device or cloud service, it typically gets moved to a trash or recycle bin where it can still be recovered. On Android devices, deleted photos go to the trash in the Photos app for 60 days before being permanently deleted [1]. On iOS devices, deleted photos go to the Recently Deleted album for 30 days [2].
On cloud services like Google Photos and iCloud, deleting a photo sends it to the trash where it can be recovered for a limited time – 60 days for Google Photos [1] and 30 days for iCloud [2]. After that time period, the photos are permanently deleted from the servers.
So in summary, deleted photos are sent to a temporary trash or recycle bin where they can be recovered for a limited time. Once that time period passes, the photos are permanently deleted and much harder to recover from devices or cloud services.
Permanent Deletion
Permanent deletion is different from standard deletion. When you normally delete a file, the file is not actually removed from your storage device. Instead, it is simply hidden from view in your operating system. The data still remains on the disk until it gets overwritten by new data. This allows you to recover “deleted” files using data recovery software as long as the original data has not yet been overwritten.
Permanent deletion, on the other hand, completely removes the file so it cannot be recovered. The file is not just hidden, but the reference to it is removed from the file system table and the actual data is overwritten with zeros or random data to prevent recovery. The key difference is that permanent deletion aims to prevent any possibility of recovering the deleted data. According to this Quora post, permanent deletion makes recovery much more difficult because the data is actively overwritten.
Some operating systems and applications provide a “secure delete” function that overwrites data multiple times to ensure it can’t be recovered. Other devices like smartphones may encrypt stored data, which requires a cryptographic key to decrypt and access the data. Permanently deleting encrypted data means securely wiping the encryption key, rendering the encrypted data unrecoverable.
Photo Deletion on Devices
When you delete a photo on a mobile device or computer, the file is not actually erased right away. Instead, the operating system simply marks the space occupied by that file as available for new data. The original photo data remains on the storage device until it gets overwritten.
To ensure photos are permanently deleted on devices, you need to use secure deletion methods that overwrite the data. On Windows 10, this can be done using the “cipher” command in Command Prompt to overwrite free disk space. On Android devices, apps like Eraser can securely overwrite deleted files. You can also do a factory reset to wipe all data from the device storage.
The key is overwriting the disk area where deleted photos are stored multiple times with random data. This makes it practically impossible to recover the original photo data. Simply deleting photos and emptying the recycle bin does not permanently erase files on devices.[1][2]
One method is to use third-party secure deletion software that adheres to standards like DoD 5220.22-M for overwriting data. This can ensure permanent deletion by repeatedly overwriting disk sectors 7 or more times.[3]
Photo Deletion on Cloud Services
Cloud storage services like iCloud, Google Photos, Dropbox, and OneDrive allow users to upload photos and access them from multiple devices. When a user deletes a photo from a cloud service, it goes through a multi-step deletion process before being permanently erased.
On iCloud, deleting a photo sends it to the Recently Deleted folder where it stays for 30 days. Within those 30 days, users can restore the photo from Recently Deleted if needed. After 30 days, iCloud permanently deletes the photo [1].
Google Photos has a similar 60-day trash bin. Deleted photos sit in the trash for 60 days before being permanently deleted. Users can restore photos from the trash during this period [2]. For instant permanent deletion, users must select the photo, click Delete, and choose the “Delete forever” option.
Other cloud services like Dropbox and OneDrive also use a deleted files folder that permanently erases items after a set number of days. This gives users a window to recover accidentally deleted photos if needed.
Cloud services only permanently delete photos when users manually select the permanent delete option. Otherwise, the services use temporary trash folders to provide a safety net before permanent erasure. This allows users to recover photos in case of accidental deletion.
Photo Recovery
When photos are permanently deleted from a device or cloud storage, it may seem like they are gone forever. However, in many cases it is possible to recover deleted photos, even if they were not backed up elsewhere. This is because deleting a photo does not always fully erase its data from storage systems.
When a photo is deleted from a device, the reference to the data is removed but remnants often still exist in the storage until they are overwritten by new data. Specialized data recovery software can scan storage and find these remnants to reconstruct deleted files. However, the chances of recovery success depend on how much new data was written after deletion. The sooner recovery is attempted, the better the chances ([1]).
On cloud storage services like Google Photos, deleted items are moved to a trash folder where they can easily be recovered if done soon after deletion. However, most services will automatically delete trashed items after 30-60 days. At that point, recovering data depends on whether it was kept in backups ([2]).
While full recovery is not guaranteed, particularly once storage areas have been overwritten, there is often more hope than users realize. With the right tools and timing, it is frequently possible to recover at least some deleted photos.
Maintaining Privacy
When sharing photos online, it’s important to consider privacy and take steps to protect your personal images. Here are some tips on truly deleting photos to maintain privacy:
Enable encryption features in apps like Keepsafe (1). This will encrypt your photos for extra security.
Review and adjust privacy settings in photo sharing apps and social media. Limit who can view, share or download your images (2).
Permanently delete photos from devices and cloud services when no longer needed. Deactivate accounts that contain private images to ensure they are removed from servers.
Avoid screenshots of personal photos, as this creates additional copies. Use apps that prevent screenshots for sharing sensitive images.
Store private photos only on your personal devices and encrypted cloud services. Never send directly through messaging apps.
Ultimately, refrain from taking or storing images you wouldn’t want public. Regularly purge photos to limit your digital footprint.
Recap
When you permanently delete photos, they are usually removed from the device or cloud storage you deleted them from. However, traces of the photos may still exist in system backups and caches. Though difficult, it is sometimes possible to recover permanently deleted photos using data recovery software or services.
To summarize the key points:
- Deleting photos from your device or cloud storage sends them to the trash folder.
- Emptying the trash folder begins process of permanently deleting the photos.
- Permanently deleted photos are removed from active storage on the device or service.
- Deleted photos may still exist in backups or caches, but are not readily accessible.
- With effort, permanently deleted photos can sometimes be recovered using data recovery tools.
- Only way to fully ensure photos are unrecoverable is to wipe storage device completely.
In conclusion, when you permanently delete photos through standard deletion methods, they are removed from active storage but fragments may remain recoverable. For full privacy, storage devices must be securely wiped.
Conclusion
In conclusion, understanding what happens to photos after they are permanently deleted is important for maintaining privacy and controlling your data. When deleted from devices, photos may still be recoverable through data recovery software or forensics. However, deleting photos from cloud services like iCloud or Google Photos means they are likely gone for good. While it’s possible a cloud service may retain deleted data temporarily, it is eventually overwritten. The key takeaway is that permanent deletion removes easy access to photos, but traces may still remain in system backups and caches until fully overwritten. Being mindful of how and where you store photos allows better control over their privacy.