Help Lost photos

[Erik Campbell]

So awhile back i factory reset my phone. Now what i dont get is i was able to re-download alot of my pics but not all. I have recovered photos ranging from downloaded,to ones i took with my camera,and even text message pics i saved. I dont get why i was able to recover some but not all. I was even able to get a pic i took with a phone i had in 2014. But some of my more important ones just aren't there. Also alot of the photos were not done through Google photos and they weren't saved to my drive.

So how is this possible

 

[lunatic59]

If you have Google sync turned on for photos, it only looks in specific locations ... DCIM (the camera) for instance. If you want other folders to sync you have to add them manually. Plus you can set up sync on Google Drive or Google Photos or through G+, so it might not be immediately obvious what you've got backed up or not.

When you reset an Android device, depending on the manufacturer's recovery and the version of Android, you may or may not wipe the user /sdcard partition which means that any images stored there may remain after a reset. Any images stored ONLY in the cloud will not be available after a reset until another sync takes place.

It could be that you've got automatic restore set only for Drive. I'd log into your Google account on a PC and check out your storage and photos to see if your missing images are there. I know it's not helpful now, but this is why backups of important files need to be verified to prevent loss.