How to Retrieve Deleted Photos from your Phone

So, you just accidentally deleted all those super important vacation pictures you wanted to post on social media. They’re displaced from your smartphone memory card, never to be seen again.

Or, say your kid accidentally wiped all your photos clean from the camera. We know it hurts, and we fully empathize with you.

You experience that deep pit in your gut and it’s like the end of your world. But, not to worry, you haven’t lost your photos forever. There are some easy ways of recovering deleted photos within the blink of an eye. But you need to act fast. So read on.

First Things First

1. Turn off data and Wi-Fi.

Act quickly and turn off the data connection on your phone as well as the Wi-Fi. This is necessary because when any data on a smartphone is deleted—such as photos, documents or any other files—it is only permanently deleted once something is written over the space occupied by the file in the memory of the device.

So what has been deleted, you might ask? Initially, the index points to the beginning of the data in the device’s memory. You can get to that point and retrieve your photos or other data.

However, if something is written over the top of that point, the files are gone for good and you might as well forget about them. For instance, if an update comes in right at that time and your data or Wi-Fi is on, that’s a disaster.

2. Don’t take any new photos

If you take new photos after deleting the old ones, they will overwrite the space created by the deleted photos. As such, your old photos will be gone forever.

Various Solutions

1. Use related software.

There are many actions you can take to solve this problem; some are free and some are paid.But first, consider whether your memory card came with recovery software. If you find out it did come with special software, use it immediately.

2. Online solutions.

There are many such software recovery tools available on the Internet. You can find many popular ones available for Mac devices, as well as Windows.

However, there are also solutions for Android, such as the freeware program RecoveryAndroid. Other such software includes 7-Data Recovery, FonePaw, EAseUSMobiSaver, Yodot Android Data Recovery, PhotoRec and some others.

3. And, the last resort…

Once you’ve exhausted all your resources and still haven’t restored your files, make a visit to your local computer repair specialist.

Recovering Photos from Android Memory Card

If you have an Android phone and your photos are saved on its memory card, there are a few different kinds of recovery software you can use to retrieve your old files.

In addition, there are a few desktop recovery software applications. They are available for Mac and Windows systems, and they usually scan the Android smartphone to find the deleted images.

Dr.Fone is available for Android, but only if you use it with a Windows desktop; whereas Kvisoft Data Recovery is available for both Windows and Macs.

Here’s how the process works:

1. Enable the USB debugging feature on your Android phone. Go to Settings and click on Build number in the About phone section.
2. Next, select the Developer Option and turn on the USB debugging.
3. Launch the app and connect the device to the computer with a USB cable.
4. Select the Mobile Device from the Menu
5. Select your smartphone for scanning the files and press on Start.
6. After scanning is complete, select files that you want to retrieve, through the menu.
7. Click on the Recovery button and select where you want the file to get stored.

Recovering Photos from an iPhone

This is much easier, especially after iOS 8. Just follow these steps:

1. Go to the Photos application on your iPhone.
2. Select Albums seen on the toolbar at the bottom.
3. Tap on the Recently Deleted option. You will find the album containing all the photos that were recently deleted.
4. When you find the photos you want to retrieve, tap on that image and opt for Recover.
5. It quickly adds the picture back to your photo album, and you’re good to go.
6. You can also pick on Delete instead of Recover, and it’s gone forever.
7. For photos that are deleted before a month, you can retrieve them by restoring the iPhone from a backup. Use iTunes for this (you are backing up the phone, we assume). You can also try a third party application for photo recovery.