Recover your deleted photos, videos and files
Deleted a photo, video or file by mistake? Take a breath: it is often not gone.
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Pick what you lost below and follow the step-by-step guide to get it back.
What do you need to recover?
Why deleted does not always mean gone
That sinking feeling is familiar to almost everyone.
You tap the wrong button, or clear space in a hurry, and a picture, a video or an important file vanishes from your screen. For a moment it feels final.
In many cases it is not. When you delete something on your phone, the phone usually does not erase it on the spot.
It moves the item to a trash or Recently Deleted folder and keeps it there for a limited time, often about 30 days or more.
This guide explains how that works and what to do in the first minutes, so you give yourself the best chance of getting it back.
What really happens when you delete something
Think of a library that removes a book's card from the catalog but leaves the book on the shelf.
Nobody can find the book by searching, yet it is still in its place. Your phone works in a similar way.
After the trash period ends, the space is only marked as available. The data can stay there until something new is saved in the same spot.
This is why time matters so much. Every new photo you take, every message you receive and every app that updates in the background writes new data.
Sooner or later, some of that data lands on top of what you lost. The less you use the phone after a deletion, the better your chances.
The first thing to do: slow down
Before you try anything else, take a breath and stop using the phone as much as you can.
Do not install new apps, do not clean up more storage and do not take lots of new pictures.
Turning on airplane mode is a simple way to stop background activity and give yourself time to think.
Many people make things worse in the first ten minutes by trying five different things at once. A calm, step-by-step approach works better.
Where to look first
There are five places that solve the problem more often than people expect.
The first is the Recently Deleted album on iPhone, or the Trash in the gallery on Android.
Open your gallery, look at the menu and find the folder. Items usually wait there for a while, and restoring one takes a single tap.
The second is your cloud backup. Many phones save photos, videos and documents to the cloud automatically, and the cloud service keeps its own trash.
Even if the item is gone from the phone, a copy may be waiting there.
The third is another device signed in to the same account, such as a second phone or a tablet.
Items that were synced earlier may still be visible there.
The fourth is any place where you feel the item. Check your messages and your email.
A copy of the picture or the document may still be in an old conversation.
The fifth is the memory card, if your phone uses one. Cards sometimes keep items that the phone no longer shows.
Why photos, videos and files are not all the same
Each type of item behaves a little differently, which is why we wrote a separate guide for each one.
Photos are small and are often saved to the cloud, so they are the easiest to find in a backup.
Videos take up much more space, so people delete them more often to make room, and large files can be overwritten sooner.
Documents and other files heavily depend on the app that created them, and some types cannot be restored once they leave the trash.
Pick the option above that matches what you lost.
Each page follows the same simple order: look in the trash, check the backup, and only then think about a recovery app.
When a recovery app makes sense
If the item is not in the trash and not in a backup, a recovery app may be worth trying.
These apps look through the storage of your phone for items that were marked as available but have not been overwritten yet.
The chances depend on how long ago you deleted the item and how much you have used the phone since.
If you decide to try one, keep a few simple rules in mind.
Download it only from the official store of your phone, which is Google Play or the App Store.
Read the permissions he asks for and make sure they make sense.
Look for an app that lets you preview what it found before you restore anything. And always save recovered items to a different place from where they were deleted.
Mistakes that lower your chances
The most common mistake is to keep using the phone as if nothing happened.
The second is to download apps from unofficial websites, which is a common way to pick up unwanted programs.
The third is to restore an item to the exact spot it was deleted from, which can overwrite the very data you just rescued.
How to stop it from happening again
Prevention is always better than recovery. Turn on automatic backup so that every new photo, video and document is saved as soon as it is created.
Keep some storage space available on your phone, because a full phone is more likely to run into problems.
Keep your system updated, since updates often fix bugs that cause data loss.
And before you delete something, ask yourself whether you really do not need it.
Ready to start?
Choose what you lost in the buttons above and follow the step-by-step guide. Stay calm, follow the steps in order and give yourself the best chance.
Results are not guaranteed. Success depends on the time since deletion and how the device was used afterwards.
