How can I recover permanently deleted files from Android phone?

Answer

1. Connect your Android phone to the computer and use EaseUS MobiSaver for Android to find lost data.
2. Preview and recover lost data from other storage on your device, such as SD card, USB OTG drive, or backup cloud account.

“I have a Samsung Galaxy S3. I accidentally formatted my SD card on my Android phone and deleted all the photos off of it yesterday. How can I recover these photos? They are not in trash because I emptied the trash already.” — Jennifer, Aspiring Journalist

Here are some tips to help you recover permanently deleted files from Android phones:

Option 1: Restore Deleted Files from Trash Basket

The first thing that you need to do is check if the pictures are still in your SD cards’ trash basket. To get there, please follow these steps:

Go to Settings > Storage menu > View details option > under Mounted section, tap Unmount SD card to safely eject your SD card.

Open the file manager app on your phone or connect the microSD card to your computer via a microSD card reader, and then go into DCIM/Pictures folder. (Note: The location of this folder varies depending on which type of Android phone you are using.)

Find any recently-deleted files in File Manager or your file browser. Those may include images that were deleted from the Gallery app. To preview them, long press such image files and choose Open option > tap Image preview icon at bottom right corner (shown as below). It’s better to save those pictures now before they get permanently overwritten by other files later.

Option 2: Restore Deleted Files from External SD Card

If the deleted photos are on your primary internal storage, you can use a professional Android data recovery software to retrieve them. But if the deleted pictures are saved on extSD card, you must make sure that you have an app installed in your device which will help you store and manage files between your internal memory and external media. So for this case, please backup the first with Samsung/LG Backup or Google Photos app before trying to recover permanently deleted files from Android phone.

Option 3: Recover Deleted Pictures without Root

How could some third-party apps help me recover permanently deleted files from Android? Here is what we recommend:

Step 1: Connect your Android phone to the computer.

It is highly recommended that you use a professional data recovery software for Mac or Windows to scan your device, because this step will help you find out more deleted pictures on Android phones or tablets.

Step 2: Scan the device and find lost photos.

Select Recover from Android Device option > Click Start button when scanning is finished. The scanning process may take some minutes depending on the size of your file and storage type (SD card or internal memory). Please do not stop it until the program displays messages that shows there are found files on your phone now. You can see how many files have been found before selecting a picture in Preview window, then click recover icon bottom right corner to save found pictures in case you need them.

Option 4: Recover Deleted Photos with External App Backup

If the photos are not saved on your Android phone or SD card, they may be still on your external app backup tool such as Google Photos. However, before trying this option, make sure that you’ve already set up backup and sync for all the new pictures that were taken after files deletion. For example, if you want to recover permanently deleted images from Android 8/9 phones like Pixel 2 XL or Galaxy S10 plus, please do so by following these steps:

1) Go to Settings > Google Photos > tap Back up & sync icon (shown below). Then click Revert button to turn it ON.

2) Then you need to sign in your Google account and allow the app to access your cloud storage – click Continue button, then tap Authorize option > select an existing account or create a new one if you don’t have any yet (shown below).

3) Finally, please open Gallery app on the phone and check whether the pictures are still there. Sometimes they are not, because Google Photos may remove them automatically after uploading. In this case, you can use a professional Android data recovery software like Tenorshare PhoneRescue for Windows/Mac to retrieve deleted photos from Google Photos easily through below steps:

1) Please download PhoneRescue for Mac or PhoneRescue for Windows on computer. Then follow the wizard to install and launch it > connect your Android device to PC via USB cable or WiFi connection.

2) Choose Recover from Google Photos option in PhoneRescue, then click Scan button (showed as below). It will take some time depending on the size of your photos.

3) Preview deleted images and find out missing pictures by clicking play button bottom right corner (shown as below), select a picture you want to save > Click Export icon at right side of Window. You can either choose “Export with original quality” which keeps all the details of the photo or pick “Best Quality” if you want bigger files saved now. This last option is recommended for viewing on PC or sharing pictures with others.

Option 5: Recover Deleted Photos with Android Data Recovery Software

If you are not able to recover deleted photos from internal memory of android phones, SD cards, and Google Photos app (storage location depends on how your android device is configured), the last option you can try is a free Android data recovery software – Amoeba Photo Recovery. It will help users find deleted pictures on Android devices from possible storage locations: SD card, internal hard drive, and even cloud backups (such as Google Drive) if any. Below steps show how to use it step by step to get back lost images in case of accidental deletion or formatting. You’ll have no problem since even beginners can use this tool to get back lost photos in most cases.

1 Download, install and launch Amoeba Photo Recovery on your computer (as shown below) after downloading it from official website:

2 Connect the sdcard of Android phone or tablet to PC via USB cable or WiFi connection, then click “Next” button as shown below to load the lost images from the device. If there’s no SD card found for your deleted pictures, please try this program with internal android memory instead by clicking “Other…” option > Select an internal hard drive under Device category where you guess all missing files might be stored > finally select a file type that you want to look for.

3 Preview and select a photo or multiple images that you want to recover from your android phone (as shown in below). Then click “Recover” button at the right bottom corner of window to get back deleted pictures from android devices with ease. Also, you can choose “Select All” option if there are many missing files picked up by this program automatically or manually.

Option 6: Use 3rd Party App to Retrieve Deleted Photos on Android Phone

Sometimes it’s necessary to use powerful third-party apps for Android data recovery when all the above options failed. Here we recommend iMyFone D-Back which is capable of recovering photos, messages, contacts, call histories, WhatsApp/Viber/Kik/WeChat chats, and more from android phone or tablet. It’s the only data recovery tool for Android with intuitive user interface which makes it easy to use by anyone.

1 The first step is to download iMyFone D-Back on your computer > connect your android device to PC via USB cable or WiFi connection (shown below). Then follow the wizard to install and launch this program.

2 You can scan all storage locations on your phone by clicking Scan button at bottom left > wait a few minutes until scanning process completes (as shown in below) > Preview deleted photos and other files if found by this software.

3 Choose a photo you want to get back and click Recover button at the right bottom corner of window to save it on your computer. This step is optional if you just want to preview deleted pictures before deciding which one you want to recover.

4 Once completed, a popup message will pop up as shown below, where you need to choose “Save” button at lower left corner > Then enter a file name that you’d like people recognize later when saving recovered photos from android device (as shown in below). Finally, you can find all lost images saved in this folder. It’s really easy!

1. Connect your Android phone to the computer and use EaseUS MobiSaver for Android to find lost data.
2. Preview and recover lost data from other storage on your device, such as SD card, USB OTG drive, or backup cloud account.

Fortunately, Windows 10 permanently deletes files which cannot be returned unless immediately stopped from using the device. If this happens, you can recover permanently deleted files by downloading a software to extract your documents.

Sure, deleted files go to the recycle bin. Once you right click on a file and choose delete, it ends up there. However, that doesn’t mean the file is deleted because it’s not. It’s simply in a different folder location, one that’s labeled recycle bin.