-
After 15+ years, we've made a big change: Android Forums is now Early Bird Club. Learn more here.
How to recover deleted photos and videos
- Thread starter ketanco
- Start date
puppykickr
Android Expert
Chances are they are gone.
Unless you have sophisticated and expensive forensic software, and have not saved anything else.
The free apps you find that claim to be able to recover files often will only recover thumbnails of what was on the device- low resolution copies that look terrible when viewed fullscreen.
Then there are the apps that want money to recover the data, and as far as I can tell they are scams.
Yes, it may be possible to recover, but the odds are slim, and slimmer as you use the device more.
When you delete, you really do not delete- the files are still there- but you do make the memory space available to be reused.
We have no control over what bits of memory are used when or for what, so when some of these bits get reused there may be a portion of memory from an old file used.
That means that even if you can get a deleted file to 'recover' in some way, it may be corrupted by anything that got saved after the deletion.
This is why the trash feature exists.
It is highly recommended to use one, as it would have prevented this altogether.
I do not use Google Photos, and none of my devices have a built in trash feature.
However, the Gallery app that I use has a recycle bin that works the same way.
Anything that I do not restore from it gets deleted for real after 30 days.
https://f-droid.org/en/packages/com.simplemobiletools.gallery.pro/
Unless you have sophisticated and expensive forensic software, and have not saved anything else.
The free apps you find that claim to be able to recover files often will only recover thumbnails of what was on the device- low resolution copies that look terrible when viewed fullscreen.
Then there are the apps that want money to recover the data, and as far as I can tell they are scams.
Yes, it may be possible to recover, but the odds are slim, and slimmer as you use the device more.
When you delete, you really do not delete- the files are still there- but you do make the memory space available to be reused.
We have no control over what bits of memory are used when or for what, so when some of these bits get reused there may be a portion of memory from an old file used.
That means that even if you can get a deleted file to 'recover' in some way, it may be corrupted by anything that got saved after the deletion.
This is why the trash feature exists.
It is highly recommended to use one, as it would have prevented this altogether.
I do not use Google Photos, and none of my devices have a built in trash feature.
However, the Gallery app that I use has a recycle bin that works the same way.
Anything that I do not restore from it gets deleted for real after 30 days.
https://f-droid.org/en/packages/com.simplemobiletools.gallery.pro/
Bottom line, they are gone.
I suggest using Google photos as an automatic backup moving forward
I suggest using Google photos as an automatic backup moving forward
The thing is, Android devices use encrypted EXT4 storage, and one of the premises of that is for a secure erase, to ensure that deleted items can't easily be recovered.
That's why some manufacturers like Samsung, may have a recycle-bin/trash-can type feature in their file manager apps. Which on my Note20 was ON by default.
That's why some manufacturers like Samsung, may have a recycle-bin/trash-can type feature in their file manager apps. Which on my Note20 was ON by default.
Sorry to hear that. Usually, you need to stop using your phone after you deleted data on your phone without backup in case of data overwritten. Then you need to ask for help from pro shop or data recovery tool. They are not free. So the important thing is taking backup your phone often.
maggiem2481
Member
If you have created a backup earlier in the cloud storage then you can easily restore them back to your phone.
Milo Williamson
Extreme Android User
Although truth to be told: There is a bmp review on everything you do snapshot if you want,
really easy just plug into your home computer, or any device that has a usb port, and browse through it..
I thnk I still have around a thousand or two, just tidy up my free space...
really easy just plug into your home computer, or any device that has a usb port, and browse through it..
I thnk I still have around a thousand or two, just tidy up my free space...