How to Recover Images on Different Storage Devices?

What to do after accidentally deleting photos?

Photos are meant to record unforgettable memories. But they could be lost or accidentally deleted for kinds of reasons. You may delete them due to wrong operations, or they got lost due to system crashes, virus attacks, and others. Fortunately, there is a good chance that you could recover deleted or lost images safely.

If you find yourself in this situation, there are kinds of methods for restoring photos and videos deleted from Windows PCs, Mac, iPhones, digital cameras, USB drives, and other storage devices. Stop using storage devices anymore to avoid deleted data being overwritten and turn to the possible solutions for recovering images.

How to recover deleted pictures on Windows PC

For Windows users, there are three methods to recover deleted pictures. Some require the previous backup files, otherwise, a professional data recovery tool could be the best choice to restore images on PCs.

Method 1. Recover the recently deleted images from the Recycle Bin

Recycle Bin is the first place to check when you find important images disappeared on Windows computers. It's a special folder used by the Windows operating system to store recently deleted data. Files are kept in the Recycle Bin for a period of time or until being emptied. Try reliable data recovery software to recover photos from emptied Recycle Bin.

Step 1. Double click the Recycle Bin icon to open it.

Step 2. Find the image that you need and right-click it and select “Restore”.

Note: the image will be restored to the original location before being deleted. Alternatively, you could drag and drop the image to the folder where you want.

Method 2. Restore permanently deleted pictures via backup files

This method requires users to back up pictures before via Windows Backup and Restore feature. It’s necessary to back up your computer regularly to protect your important data. Check the steps in the following to recover permanently deleted pictures on a Windows 10 computer. If there are no available backup files, go to method 3 to restore images on PCs.

Step 1. Connect the external hard drive where your backup files are stored.

Step 2. Right-click the Windows Start button and then go to “Control Panel” > “System and Maintenance” > “Backup and Restore (Windows 7)” > “Restore my files” or “Restore all users’ files”.

Step 3. Select “Browse for files” or “Browse for folders” to search for photos you want to recover. Select the images and click “Restore” to retrieve them.

Method 3. Recover images via photo recovery software

If you can’t find the deleted images in the Recycle Bin and you don’t have a backup, photo recovery software is the best solution. High recommended MyRecover to restore permanently deleted pictures on Windows computers without backup. When other methods fail, MyRecover will scan your disk partitions to recover deleted files.

Step 1. Launch MyRecover on your computer and hover the mouse over the location where the deleted pictures were stored before and click Scan.

Step 2. The scanning process will start quickly and deeply to search for each deleted file it can.

Step 3. When you find the images you want, select them and click “Recover files”.

How to recover deleted photos on Mac

There are several methods to retrieve deleted images on Mac. If the files were recently deleted, you may be able to recover them by searching the Trash Bin. Apple also provides several methods for backing up your photos so that they can be recovered if necessary.

Method 1. Recover images from Mac Trash Bin

The first place to look for deleted photos or files on your Mac is the Trash Bin. When a file is deleted, macOS temporarily moves it to the Trash Bin to make it available for recovery if you need it. Check the steps below to restore pictures from Mac Trash Bin.

Step 1. Click the Trash Bin icon to open it and locate the photo you want to restore.

Step 2. Right-click on it and select “Put Back”. The photo will be recovered to the original location.

Method 2. Recover images from a Time Machine backup

Mac operating system provides a built-in backup and restore tool-Time Machine. You could recover permanently deleted photos on a Mac computer if you have used this tool to back up all of your data.

Step 1. Connect the external hard disk containing the backup files to your Mac.

Step 2. Open a Finder window in the folder where the photos were saved before.

Step 3. Click the clock icon to open Time Machine on Mac’s menu bar and select “Enter Time Machine”.

Step 4. Locate the photos you want to recover and click “Restore” to recover the targeted pictures.

How to recover images from a digital camera

Some users want to restore images from a digital camera, like Canon, Nikon, or other brands. The first thing you need to do is to check the recently deleted folder of the digital camera. The deleted files will be stored there temporarily.

If you couldn’t find them, you could restore deleted images from its SD cards with the help of MyRecover. Follow the steps to restore images from a memory card of a digital camera. The steps are the same as Windows file recovery. 

Step 1. Open MyRecover. Connect the digital camera or the memory card to a Windows computer.

Step 2. Select the camera or memory card and click “Start Scan”.

Step 3. You can recover the images that you need during the scanning by ticking them and clicking the button “Recover files”.

How to recover deleted images from iPhone

If you have deleted photos on your iPhone, there are several different ways to restore recently deleted photos on iPhones. It’s easy to restore the deleted photos without software via the Recently Deleted folder and recover deleted iPhone data from iTunes backups.

Besides, if your photos have not been overwritten by new data, you may be able to recover them without backups via a reliable photo recovery tool-MyRecover for iOS.

Step 1. Download and install AOMEI Data Recovery for iOS on your Windows computer.

Step 2. Connect your iPhone to the computer via a USB cable. Tap “Trust the computer” on your iPhone.

Step 3. After the software detects your iPhone, click “Scan Now”.

Step 4. All recoverable data will be shown. Go to "Photos", select your deleted photos, and then click "Recover". It can also recover other types of iOS data like videos, notes, voice memos, etc.

Tips to avoid data loss

Although there are several ways to recover images free on different storage devices, none of them can guarantee a 100% success rate for photo recovery without backup files. No recovery method is perfect. Therefore, the most important you need to do is do some simple precautions to help you avoid data loss.

Make regular backups. It’s necessary to back up your important data. You could use the built-in backup and restore tools in the operating system, third-party backup programs, or copy data to the cloud. You can choose to make backups weekly or monthly.

It’s recommended to use the freeware-AOMEI Backupper for backup, restore and clone important data on Windows computers. If you are using iPhone, iPad, or iPod Touch, FoneTool is an awesome tool for backing up, restoring, and transferring data among iOS devices.

Thick twice before deleting data. One of the most common causes of data loss is accidental deletion. It's too easy to tap the wrong button or format a critical partition. Think twice before pressing the delete key and double-check the files and the location.

Auto-upload photos to the cloud. Many mobile devices can immediately upload your digital photos to the cloud. You could use Google Photos or other cloud services to keep your photos secure.

Create different partitions for kinds of purposes. You could create multiple partitions on your storage media to separate various files. It can reduce the possibility of accidentally formatting the partition containing your images.