Galaxy Note 4 - I deleted 6 years of photos from my computer

[AndreaG]

Hello! I accidentally deleted all of my photos from my computer thinking I had moved them all to another drive on my computer. I tried to recover them immediately when I realized what I had done, but most are corrupted. I want to re-download all of them again from my phone to my computer in the nice little folders named with the date the photos were taken like how they were originally downloaded. I also want to redirect the download to another drive. How do I do this? My phone just downloads new photos. I know I can use Windows file manager and move them from my phone to my computer, but the photos will not be in their dated folders. Can anyone help?

 

[w8wca]

Hello! I accidentally deleted all of my photos from my computer thinking I had moved them all to another drive on my computer. I tried to recover them immediately when I realized what I had done, but most are corrupted. I want to re-download all of them again from my phone to my computer in the nice little folders named with the date the photos were taken like how they were originally downloaded. I also want to redirect the download to another drive. How do I do this? My phone just downloads new photos. I know I can use Windows file manager and move them from my phone to my computer, but the photos will not be in their dated folders. Can anyone help?

What OS are you using?

If Windows 10 - 7 or 8 you May have a way.

In file explorer go to the place you had the photos

Right click on the folder they were in and select properties.

then See if there is a Previous Versions tab - if so click on it and then you can click restore or just copy files from it if you open the previous version of the folder

 

[driffty66]

i hope you recover them.
in future use google photos on your phone and on your pc.

 

[AndreaG]

What OS are you using?

If Windows 10 - 7 or 8 you May have a way.

In file explorer go to the place you had the photos

Right click on the folder they were in and select properties.

then See if there is a Previous Versions tab - if so click on it and then you can click restore or just copy files from it if you open the previous version of the folder

Thank you W8. Windows 10 is my system and I tried what you suggested by it said there were no previous versions.

 

[AndreaG]

i hope you recover them.
in future use google photos on your phone and on your pc.

I do use Google Photos now, but I have photos going back to 2003 that I accidentally deleted. I did recover the recent ones from Google Photo. Thank you for responding. I appreciate it.

 

[chanchan05]

So wait, just to clarify, they are in dated folders in your phone?

 

[svim]

I do use Google Photos now, but I have photos going back to 2003 that I accidentally deleted. I did recover the recent ones from Google Photo. Thank you for responding. I appreciate it.

Good to know you've got the Google Photos app backing up your phone's photo library at this point. But apparently you have older photos that were just on your computer and no backup solution in place. You might want to give some serious thought into at least buying an external hard drive to do automatic backups of your PC. Or opt for an online backup service:
https://thewirecutter.com/reviews/best-online-backup-service/
But at the very least, whatever photos you have on your PC that aren't from your phone you should use a browser to upload them into your Google account. Go to https://photos.google.com and towards the top of the page there's an 'Upload' link. You really need to get all your photos backed up into at least one safe location and done automatically (with more of course being better, as long as they're all properly synced.)

 

[AndreaG]

OK. My problem is solved. My husband has been doing scheduled back-ups every 3 months to our external hard drive, (1 tb), and I found everything on it! I am so happy! Thank you all for your help.

 

[lunatic59]

How do I do this? My phone just downloads new photos.

Andrea, when you plug in your phone to your PC, you can see the files already? The skip to the next paragraph. If not, pull down the notification bar and tap on the one that says Media Sync or USB options or something with the USB symbol on it. You should see a menu option to transfer files. MTP mode. That's the one you want.

Now, put your phone down and go to your PC. Open File Manager and in the left pane find "This PC" and click on that. In the right pane you should now see all your drives and devices. In there is your phone. It might be called Note 4 or Android Device. Right-click on that and you should see an option to import pictures and videos. That's the one you want.

Depending on how much you have on your phone, it might take a while to find them all. Then choose the review option at the end of it and it will import them into folder groups by date.