Can’t find your farewell photos? Do you doubt that you deleted them by mistake? If yes, here is how to recover deleted photos from Android.
We all love to capture the beautiful moments of our lives for the future. Maybe you recently attended a college farewell ceremony or met wonderful people after a long break. Be sure to click on the photos!
However, the limited internal storage of Android is somewhat annoying. And if you’re short on space, you’ll need to take a few photos to free up valuable space.
If you feel like you deleted some important photos in the process, don’t worry! Here is a detailed guide on how to recover deleted photos from Android. So, let’s begin.
Why are you losing your photos?
If your phone’s internal memory is almost full, the first thing you will do, like all of us, is delete unwanted photos and videos from the device. This is because these unwanted photos often take up a huge portion of the available storage space, which, if freed up, can be used for other purposes.
And in a hurry, you may not see the photos you delete. And hence, you end up deleting important photos by mistake. Other than that, below are some other situations that cause you to lose your photos.
- Due to ROM flashing, photos are disappearing from the gallery app.
- Some malicious malware is being committed on your device.
- Root your device or factory reset.
- Your device has been damaged from the inside.
There may be other reasons, but the above are the most common.
How not to lose photos on an Android smartphone?
Now that we have discussed the circumstances that can lead to the loss of important photos, let’s figure out how to avoid losing them on Android or any other device.
There is no 100% guarantee that your photos will be restored even if you try all the hacks and methods. Even if you use third-party apps to recover deleted photos from Android phone, there is a chance that they won’t be recovered.
So it’s always important not to lose your photos in the first place so that you don’t have to restore them at all. This can be done using the following methods.
- Make a backup of your Android phone
There is no doubt about the importance of backing up your phone and its valuable data. If you have backed up your Android phone, it will not only help you restore photos or videos, but also all your files and data on your phone. All this with one click!
If you’re thinking about buying a new phone in this case too, a backup might be helpful. Because you don’t have to waste time. You can easily transfer data from a backup.
- Clear cached images from your gallery
If you’re experiencing an issue where photos aren’t opening in the gallery, it might be because Android doesn’t create thumbnails correctly.
This can be easily solved in two ways. First, you can try deleting the thumbnail files from the DCIM folder. Secondly, you can use disk space cleaners to solve this problem.
- Clear out storage space
Sometimes when your phone doesn’t have enough storage space, it may not display photos correctly. Therefore, if at any point you notice that the photos from the gallery start to disappear or are not saved as usual, you always check the available storage space. If it’s only a few megabytes (MB), then it’s best to clear the memory.
- Upload photos to the cloud
There are several cloud storage platforms that are compatible with Android phones. Hence, you can use the best cloud backup service for your convenience to save or store photos instead of storing them internally. With this, you can easily transfer or recover deleted photos from your Android phone or whatever you have saved from anywhere and on any phone/device.
- Be as careful as you can
This is the ultimate hack. You should always be careful when deleting or deleting photos from your phone. Since the built-in recycle bin is not installed on most Android models, there is no full guarantee of recovering missing photos.
Finally, just think twice before choosing any image to delete.
1. How to recover deleted photos from Android?
In this section, we will discuss some of the most common and easy ways to recover deleted photos from Android.
- Recover deleted images from Trash folder
This should be the first hack you’ll try to recover photos if you have a trash folder on your phone (although this is rare on most Android devices). If your device has it, just open it and find the deleted photos you want to recover.
You can follow the steps below to access the trash folder.
- Open the Gallery app on your phone.
- Click on the three horizontal lines in the lower right corner of the screen. On some versions of Android, you need to tap on the three vertical dots in the top right corner of the screen.
- Click on the “Cart”option. The photos to be restored must be in this folder.
- Find the one you want to restore and restore it by clicking on the “Restore”option in the bottom left corner of the screen.
Please note that these trash folders only store deleted media for a certain period of time. Let’s say most recycle bins keep recently deleted photos for 30-45 days. After this period, they are permanently deleted.
If you deleted photos too early, say two months ago, they may not be there and have been permanently deleted.
If this photo is not in your trash folder, you can try the later hacks.
- Recover Deleted Photos from Google Photos
Google Photos is one of the most popular apps from Google. It stores all your photos and videos securely and allows you to recover or restore those photos at any time.
There is a chance that it might automatically delete some of your photo backups, but there is no need to panic as these photos can be recovered by following a few steps as explained below.
- Open the Google Photos app on your phone.
- Select deleted photos.
- Click on the three vertical dots and select the “Save to device”option.
You can confirm the above action by checking your phone’s main gallery app. The deleted photo should be there.
- Recover deleted photos from the cloud
You can easily recover photos saved in the clouds. The most commonly used clouds that support Android phones are:
1. Dropbox
If you have activated the Dropbox feature on your phone before deleting photos, you can easily recover all deleted photos from Dropbox on the fly. Just follow these steps.
- Open the Dropbox app on your phone.
- Navigate to the folder where you saved the deleted photos. (e.g. camera folder).
- Select the photos you want to recover.
- Click on the three vertical dots in the top right corner of the screen. And click on the “Save to device”option.
2. Microsoft OneDrive
With the help of this cloud, you can save your phone memory for some other purposes as it automatically removes the backup photos from your phone memory. And to recover deleted photos, you just need to follow the steps below.
- Open the Microsoft OneDrive app on your phone.
- At the bottom of the menu, select the Photos option.
- Select the photos you want to recover.
- Click on the three vertical dots in the top right corner of the screen.
- Click on the “Save”option.
3. Recover deleted photos from SD card
Not many, but some of you may have an SD card to expand the storage of your Android device. Thanks to this, you can store much more data on your phone than before. But with SD cards, there is some risk of losing saved data. If you damage your SD card in any way, it will be gone forever, including photos.
Therefore, it is important to understand the method of recovering data saved on the SD card in order to avoid this mishap. The most reliable software used for this is DiskDrill. It helps you recover photos without cloud or third party application.
To do this, follow these steps.
- Install the Disk Drill app on your phone.
- Connect your SD card to your computer.
- Click on the “Find lost data”option to scan photos.
- Then use the preview function to filter the photos you want to recover.
- Click on the “Restore”button, choosing the location where you want to save them.
2. How to recover Google photo and save it to phone gallery?
Follow the steps below to recover Google photo and save it to your phone gallery.
- Open the Google Photos app on your phone.
- Click on the photo you want to save on your phone.
- If you want to share a photo, click on the share icon at the bottom of the screen. Otherwise, if you want to save it to your phone’s gallery, tap on the three vertical dots at the top right of the screen.
- A menu will appear on the screen. Select the “Download”option from it. If you don’t see this option, it’s likely that the photo is already in your phone’s gallery.
- Once the download is complete, which is unlikely to take a few seconds, the photos will be saved to your Android gallery.
3. How to recover deleted photos on Android with DiskDigger – the best Android recovery software
There is a popular third party data recovery app known as DiskDigger Photo Recovery which is used to recover deleted photos on Android phone. Just follow the below steps for this purpose.
- Open the Google Play Store and install the DiskDigger app.
- Once installed, open the DiskDigger app.
- Click on the “Give access” option if any pop-up notification appears on the screen asking for access to photos, media and files.
- Select the Start Basic Scan option from the main screen.
- Once you have filtered the photo you want to restore, click on the box in the top left corner of the screen.
- Then click on the “Restore”option.
- The application will ask you to choose where you want to restore the selected photos. Select the “Save the file in an app on your device”option.
- Next, I will ask you for the folder where you want to restore the file. You can choose the one you want and then follow the instructions on the screen.
After completing the above steps, the deleted photo will be restored to the selected folder.
4. How to recover deleted photos on Android tablet?
We have discussed almost everything that can be done to recover deleted photos from Android phone. But another question is, is there any way to recover photos in android tab. And the answer is yes, there is!
This section of the article will answer your question in detail.
In general, it’s not a mistake to say that Android phones and tablets are similar, except for their size and few features. There we can use the same method to recover deleted photos on Android tablet.
Hence, you can use DiskDrill in your tab for this purpose.
- Download Disk Drill.
- Connect your tablet to your Mac with a USB cable and turn on USB debugging.
- Launch the DiskDrill app and visit Android devices.
- Provide access to all notifications that DiskDrill needs to access your storage.
- Then start scanning the photo you want to recover by clicking on the “Find Lost Data”button. This button will not be shown on the screen if your device is not properly rooted.
- Select the photo you want to recover with DiskDrill’s preview feature.
- Click “Recover”and select the destination of your choice where you want to restore the photo.
Hence, your photos will be restored to the selected location in Android tab.
5. How to Find Deleted Photos on Android – Other Methods
Apart from the above methods, there are other methods that can be used to recover deleted photos. You would try these methods if you were desperate enough. This:
- Review your emails and messages
If you sent your photos to someone via email, you can always recover them from those emails. Most email services offer unlimited space for all kinds of media. Therefore, most of your emails will be available at any time. However, it may take a little time, but if you can successfully recover the deleted photo, it’s worth it.
- Check your social networks
If not by email, you may have shared your favorite photos on social media. Or even one of your friends or relatives might have shared the exact photo you are trying to recover on their social network. Again, this can be a bit hectic and there is less chance of you finding the right photo.
- Check your device backups
Again, there are no words to describe how useful a backup can be in a situation like this where you need to restore a photo or any data on your Android phone. For more information, you can take the help of the section above, which explains how to restore photos from various backups on your device.
That’s all you can do to recover deleted photos from Android phone or tablet. And even after you try all these methods, you will not be able to restore the photo, it may have been permanently deleted, and there is no chance of recovering it.
Conclusion
So here you go. These were the most tried and tested ways/hacks to recover deleted photos from Android. And in most cases, one of them will work for you, but there is a small chance that it may not recover. Hence, as mentioned above, try not to lose or delete important photos from your phone.
For this, a backup is the most convenient option as it will be useful if you change phones frequently.
Frequently Asked Questions (FAQ)
Is there a recycle bin on android?
No, Android devices do not have a Recycle Bin to store deleted data. The reason for this is the limited storage available on these devices, which is not enough for the recycle bin.
Can I recover permanently deleted photos from my Android device?
In most cases, you cannot recover permanently deleted photos from your Android device unless you have backed up your device data. Otherwise, you can try the above hack for this purpose.
Where do permanently deleted photos go on Android?
If you have deleted photos on Android, you can check the Google Photos app. Deleted photos will be kept for at least 60 days after they are deleted.