Emptied the Recycle Bin, or lost photos because a “Recently Deleted” album had run out its 30 days? If your photos were “permanently deleted”, their chances of being recovered depend almost entirely on where they originally resided and whether anything has written over them since. Below is what to check first on each type of device, and how to tell when they’re really gone.
“Deleted permanently” rarely means completely erased. On a memory card or hard drive, the photo data usually remains until something has written over it. Flash and phones have their own rules.
Once you delete a photo and then empty the bin, or once the phone’s “Recently Deleted” album has expired (after its 30-day limit), the operating system no longer lists that file and marks its space as available for reuse. It does not go back and wipe the data. On a memory card or a mechanical hard drive, the photo itself remains physically present in the same blocks until some new data happens to land on top of it. The time between when it was deleted and when new data lands on top of it is the entire window of opportunity, and it is why speed is the most important consideration here.
Before attempting any recovery method, check every place that may already hold a copy of the photo you want back.
A surprising number of “lost forever” photographs are within reach on your smartphone. To find recently deleted photos on an iPhone, go to Photos → Recently Deleted (photos stay here for 30 days). On Android, look in the Bin inside Google Photos (images stay there for up to 60 days). Your cloud services, such as iCloud Photos, Google Photos, OneDrive or Dropbox, often keep their own copy even after you delete the photos locally, and any other device signed into the same account may still hold the original files. If a backup exists, restoring from it beats recovery every time, and it is completely cost-free.
If you’re unable to find what you want through those free methods, your ability to recover the photos depends on how they were stored. On an SD or microSD card, the deleted pictures can usually be recovered by reading the card in a card reader and searching for image data, so the rule of thumb is: do not shoot more photos on that card and do not format it. On a computer, a mechanical hard disk holds on to deleted photos well and they can often be fully restored; an SSD is much less forgiving, because TRIM clears deleted blocks in the background. A phone’s internal storage is encrypted, so once the photos have left the Recently Deleted area and there is no backup, you typically cannot recover them, and, honestly, phone-internal recovery is a service we do not provide.
Some people lose photos not because they deleted them but because the card itself has failed (it will no longer mount, shows that there is nothing on it, or asks to be formatted). This type of failure is recoverable too, and often in full, but it is bench work: the memory card is read at a low level and the images are rebuilt past the broken file system. If the card is also physically damaged, or it is a card that stopped reading entirely, send it in for a complimentary evaluation. A single memory card costs from £250 +VAT; a drive costs from £300 +VAT.
Yes, often, depending on the device. On a memory card or a mechanical hard disk, the data of your photographs usually stays on the device until something else is written on top of it, so the information can be carved back out. Using an SSD or a phone’s internal storage makes this far less likely, since TRIM and encryption clear or lock the data. It’s best to stop using the device as soon as you know you’ve lost some photos.
Nowhere, at least not immediately. Deleting and then emptying the bin simply removes the reference to that file from the device’s directory. This frees up the area occupied by the file but does nothing to delete the actual data, which stays on the card or drive until new data is written over it. Therefore, taking action quickly, before anything overwrites it, makes the difference between a full recovery and a lost photograph.
To a degree. Both keep deleted items for 30 to 60 days in their Recently Deleted albums or Bins, and cloud backups often store a copy for longer. Once these time limits expire and there is no backup, the phone’s internal storage is encrypted, so the images usually cannot be recovered. Start by looking in your Recently Deleted album, then look in your Bin and finally look in iCloud or Google Photos.
No specific time frame exists. How long deleted photos remain on your device depends entirely on how much the device is used afterwards. Every new item, such as another photo, an app update or a saved file, could land on the same space the deleted photo occupies. So treat it as urgent; the safest option is to stop using the memory card, drive or device until your important photos are recovered.
A single memory card costs from £250 plus VAT, while hard drives and SSDs start at £300 plus VAT each. Costs depend on what is wrong with your device. You receive a completely free diagnostic and a fixed written quote prior to any chargeable work, and we do everything in-house.
Send the card or drive in and the recovery process begins with a free diagnostic: we will tell you honestly what is recoverable and provide you with a fixed written quote before you have spent any money, and in most cases you only pay if we recover your data.