However, users can accidentally delete the photos on the computer or some storage disk errors may also remove these files. In such cases, you have a limited number of options to recover lost photos. In this article, we provide all the possible methods to help you in this endeavor.
How to Recover Deleted Photos on Computer?
Here are the possible ways in which you can recover deleted photos on your computer:
From Recycle Bin or Trash
There are two ways to delete files on a computer. If you just press Del or Delete key after selecting some files/folders or right-click on them and select Delete, it performs a soft delete. These files are still available in the Recycle Bin or Trash. To permanently delete a file, you need to remove it from the Trash. Or you can press Command + Delete or Shift + Delete after selecting the file depending on your OS. If you haven’t permanently deleted the photos you can restore them from the Recycle Bin or the Trash bin. Here’s how you can do so: On Windows On Mac
From Backups
If you permanently deleted the photos, you should first check your external or internal backups in case you had backed up those photos. If you had synced the photos to cloud storage, the pics might still be in the cloud’s Trash or recycle bin even if you permanently deleted them on your computer. You can also check on the synced devices as long as you haven’t connected them to the internet. Accessing the internet will sync the current configuration and may delete the files in those devices as well.
Using Recovery Software
If you don’t have any backups, you need to use data recovery software to recover the deleted photos on your computer. There are many such programs available on the internet which you can use for this purpose. First, try using a reliable open-source or free app after going through its reviews. If it fails, you can also use a paid recovery application. Here, we use PhotoRec recovery software as an example to provide you with the general process. It is an open-source program that uses a command-line interface and you can use it in Windows, Mac, or Linux. Here’s what you need to do: PhotoRec creates a subfolder recup_dir.1, recup_dir.2, recup_dir.3, etc inside the directory you set earlier, where you can find the restored photos.
Using Data Recovery Company
If you couldn’t recover the deleted photos using the recovery software, you can get help from a recovery company or specialist. They have forensic data recovery tools and methods through which it is possible to retrieve files that common recovery tools can’t. Consequently, they are somewhat expensive but you need to seek their help if you really need those photos.
