You’ve just deleted a very precious photo from your phone. You may have even broken or reset your phone and lost all of them. You now need to learn how to retrieve deleted photos from Android phones.
There are many options. There are many options, from simple to more complex. Let’s get started.
1. How to recover deleted photos from the cloud
It is easy to retrieve a deleted image from your gallery. Most of these apps use a Trash bin or Recycle Bin that is similar to the one on your desktop. So, just look for it in any gallery app you use.
Many cloud and photo apps, including Instagram, offer background backups of your photos. This will ensure that your photo doesn’t get deleted if you have it turned on.
You can delete a photo from the gallery app on your phone, but it won’t erase it from your cloud backup. Log into your cloud account to download the photo again. Open the image in Google Photos and choose Download. This is Export > Save as for Dropbox.
You can also recover an image from your cloud backup if you have deleted it. Cloud services have a recycle bin that allows you to recover any file deleted within a specified time period.
How to retrieve deleted photos from Google Photos
Open Google Photos and select Library. Next, choose Trash. Or Bin. Hold down on the image you wish to restore, then hit Restore. You can still access deleted files for up to 60 days.
Microsoft OneDrive – Recover deleted files
Open Microsoft’s OneDrive app and navigate to Me > Recycle Bin. Select the files you wish to restore and then tap the Restore button. OneDrive can keep deleted files for 30 days. However, it will delete them sooner if the recycle bin is larger that 10 percent of your total storage.
How to restore deleted photos from Dropbox
To recover deleted images from Dropbox, you must log in to the desktop. Click Files > Deleted and then choose the files you wish to restore. These files are available for 30 days from the date of deletion.
Similar cloud apps function in the same way. To see the length of time service will keep your files deleted, check out your account terms.
2. How to recover deleted Android photos from your SD card
What happens if your photos aren’t saved to the cloud? You can recover deleted photos from the gallery app by ensuring that they are saved to your SD card.
If your card isn’t encrypted, you can connect it to a computer on a desktop and use special recovery software. However, there is no guarantee.
Only new data can overwrite files that have been deleted from a memory card. To reduce the chance of photos being overwritten, it is important to delete any files that you have accidentally deleted.
This method will not work on your phone’s internal memory because Android no longer uses the USB Mass Storage protocol. It’s also difficult to retrieve deleted text messages from Android.
Use EaseUS’ Data Recovery Wizard to Recover Deleted Images
EaseUS Data Recovery Wizard is the best free image recovery program. It is available for Windows as well as Mac.
Connect your memory card first to your computer using a card reader, or through your laptop’s SD slot.
Run Data Recovery Wizard. It will launch and show you all the drives that you have access to data recovery. This will include both your hard drive as well as the memory card.
Click on the memory card you wish to scan and hit Scan. Now, the app will scan for files it can retrieve. The free version allows you to restore up 2GB of data. Scanning can take 20 minutes to complete depending on how large the card is and how much data it contains. You don’t need to wait for the scanning to complete.
In the left-hand panel, select Type. Select jpg from the dropdown menu. The main window will display all images that you can recover. Choose the images you like.
Click Recover to choose a place on your hard disk where you want to save your images. You can export them and save them in a separate folder. These files can be copied to your phone.
3. How to restore deleted photos on a rooted phone
It is much more difficult to retrieve deleted photos from an Android phone if you don’t use a cloud backup service or memory cards. There is no way to scan the internal storage of your Android phone to retrieve deleted files, despite claims made by certain apps online.
If you’re desperate, you can try rooting your phone. However, this could mean that you have to wipe the phone. This increases the chance that any photos that were deleted will be overwritten or lost forever.
It is easy to root your phone if it is already rooted. For more information, see our How to Root an Android Phone guide.
DiskDigger – Undelete Photos
Download the DiskDigger photo recovery app from the Play Store. You can recover photo and video files for free. If you need other file types, you will have to pay.
Start the app, and then grant root permissions if prompted. Now you’ll see Basic Scans and Complete Scans. The first option is not recommended as it will only locate low-resolution thumbnails of your images. You should instead use the Full Scans option.
Locate your phone’s internal storage. This is usually the /data section. Click it and then select the file type you wish to search for. To begin, tap OK
It scans immediately and displays a thumbnail grid with all the images it finds. The app doesn’t show deleted photos, it also shows all images in your phone’s internal memory. This takes quite a while.
Tap the Settings button to filter some of the results. A larger Minimum file size is recommended. By choosing 1,000,000 for example, your results will be limited to images larger that a megabyte. You can limit the date range to the time the photos were taken.
DiskDigger cannot find all deleted photos, and some may be corrupted. Once it finds the photos you are interested in, tap Recover.
You can choose where to save the file. They can be saved to an app or placed back in your camera folder. To do this, choose the DCIM folder. To save your photos, click OK.
How to avoid losing your Android photos next time
Keep your photos backed up so you don’t lose them.
Apps that backup your Android photos to cloud storage are the best option. These apps are silent and can upload photos in the background. You can set them to work only when your phone is connected to Wi-Fi. This will not affect your data plan and battery life.
You should not only be concerned about photos, but also the other important data stored on your Android device. Here are some tips to backup everything. You’ll never lose anything again if you have a backup plan.
