How to recover photos from cell phone trash

You accidentally deleted photos from your smartphone, and by talking to a friend, you learned that not all could be lost. The photos, in fact, may have ended up in the basket of the Gallery app and / or the cloud service associated with your mobile device, from which you may be able to easily recover them before they are permanently deleted (which happens automatically after a few days). Well, they didn’t lie to you; this is indeed the case, so all is not yet lost.

If you are not very tech savvy and you need more information about it, I can show you how to recover photos from the trash on your mobile phone on both Android and iPhone. Furthermore, if the basket is empty, I will provide you with some advice – I hope it is useful – on valid alternative solutions you could turn to.

Then? What would you say to immediately put the chatter aside and proceed? Yup? Great! Get comfortable, grab your mobile device and focus on reading the following. I really hope that, in the end, you can feel very happy and satisfied with the results obtained. Good luck!

Index

• How to recover photos from cell phone trash: Android
  • Google Photos / Gallery
  • Cloud services baskets
  • Backup restore
  • Data recovery software
• How to recover photos from cell phone trash: iPhone
  • Photo
  • Cloud services baskets
  • Backup restore
  • Data recovery software

How to recover photos from cell phone trash: Android

Do you own an Android smartphone and would like to understand how to recover photos from the cell phone recycle bin ? Then follow the instructions below.

Google Photos / Gallery

Google Photos , the app for managing and storing photos made available by “big G” and pre-installed on most Android terminals, includes a recycle bin similar to that of computers, in which I automatically finish all the photos (and videos) that are deleted from the application and in which they remain for 60 days before definitive deletion.

Taking this into account, to try to recover deleted photos from the mobile phone trash, just take your device, unlock it (if necessary), access the home screen and / or drawer and start the Google Photos app by selecting the relevant icon ( the one with the colored pinwheel ).

Once the main screen of the app is displayed, touch the word Collection at the bottom right and then that Trash . At this point, if among the items in the trash there are also the deleted photos of your interest, to recover them touch the word Select located at the top right, select the contents of your interest and tap the Restore option twice in a row.

Please note that the same recovery operation can also be performed with other Gallery apps that are pre-installed on Android smartphones. Almost all of them, in fact, integrate a recycle bin and the process to be implemented to recover the photos is practically the same.

Cloud services baskets

If on your Android phone you use cloud storage services for storing images, you can try to look in the relevant baskets, acting from the browser or from the related apps, in order to see if there are the images you are interested in restoring. Here’s how to do it in the main solutions of the category.

• Google Drive– connected to the home page of the service , log in to your account (if necessary), click on the Trash itemin the left sidebar, select the photos you want to recover and press the button with the circular arrow in top right.
• Dropbox – go to the home page of the service , log in to your account (if required), select the item Deleted files in the left sidebar, then the deleted photos you want to restore and press on the word Restore .
• OneDrive– visit the home page of the service , log in to your account (if necessary), select the Trash itemfrom the navigation pane, indicate the photos to restore and press the Restore
• Amazon Photos– go to the home page of the service , log in to your account (if necessary), select the Trash itemin the left sidebar, select the photos of your interest and then press the Restore buttonlocated at the top.

Backup restore

If you have the good habit of making backups of your mobile devices (or, at least, photos taken with them), you may be able to recover the photos of your interest with a backup restore .

Most Android smartphone manufacturers make software available to users through which it is possible to create and restore backups of the data on their devices, including photos. Among the most famous is the Samsung Smart Switch which is specific for Samsung- branded devices and is available for both Windows and macOS: I told you about it in detail in my guide dedicated to it .

If, on the other hand, you have a HUAWEI mobile phone you can rely on the use of the HiSuite software that works on both Windows and macOS and which I have described in detail in my guide on how to backup Huawei , while for all other brands of Android devices you can use the programs that I pointed out to you in my tutorial on how to make Android backups .

Data recovery software

The last hope you have at your disposal to attempt to recover deleted photos from your mobile is to use data recovery software .

In the specific case of Android, you could try DiskDigger photo recovery : a free app that allows you to recover photos in JPG and PNG formats deleted from the device in use, both by intervening on the internal memory of the same, and on any SD. Note that it is also available in a paid version (which costs 3.37 euros) and allows you to restore other types of files as well. In both cases, root is required to work best .

To download and install the app on your device, visit the relevant section of the Play Store and press the Install button (if you are using a device on which Google services are missing, you can download the app from alternative stores ). Then, start the app by selecting its icon that has been added to the home screen and / or drawer.

Once the main screen of the application is displayed, grant the requested permissions , refuse the switch to the Pro version, indicate the unit to be analyzed (it should be the one selected by default), select the JPG and / or PNG options and tap the button OK to start searching for deleted photos.

If and when in the scan screen you see the thumbnails of the photos of your interest appear, put the check mark on the files to be recovered and press the Recover button located at the top right. Finally, choose whether to save the files on a cloud storage service or send them via email (by selecting the cloud icon ), whether to save them locally (by selecting the folder icon ) or whether to upload them to an FTP server (by selecting the icon of arrow ).

If the application does not fully satisfy you, you can try alternative solutions by referring to my tutorial on apps to recover deleted photos and my guide dedicated to how to recover Android photos .

How to recover photos from cell phone trash: iPhone

Now, let’s move on to iPhone and find out how to recover photos from the cell phone trash in this case. The indications to follow to succeed in your intent are those that you find below.

Photo

If you have accidentally deleted photos from your iPhone, you should be able to recover them thanks to the Recently Deleted album in the Photos app : a sort of recycle bin, in which photos deleted from the device remain for 30 days before being deleted. completely.

So, to try to recover photos from the phone’s trash in this case, take your device, unlock it (if necessary), access the home screen and / or the app Library and start the Photos app by selecting the relative icon (the one with the colored flower ).

Now that you see the main screen of the app, access the Album section by touching the appropriate item located at the bottom, tap on the words Recently deleted that you find in the Other section at the bottom of the screen and, if among the available contents there are also the photos that you want to restore, tap the Select button at the top right, select the images and proceed with the recovery by tapping the Recover item and then the Recover [number] photo button .

Cloud services baskets

If you use third-party cloud storage services on your iPhone to store various photos and files, you can try to retrieve the images of your interest by working on the relevant baskets, proceeding similarly to how I indicated at the beginning of the guide in the step dedicated to Android .

The same goes for Google Photos : if you use the app of the famous service on your “iPhone by” to manage and store photos, you can intervene on the latter’s recycle bin to try to recover the recently deleted images, proceeding in the same way as as I showed you for Android in the step at the beginning of the tutorial . Nothing changes.

Backup restore

When you back up your iPhone, both on iCloud and on your computer , the photos on the device are included in it (unless they have been explicitly excluded) and, therefore, the images deleted later can also be eventually recovered in this way , restoring a backup of the device and returning it to a previous condition.

If you had made a backup on iCloud , you can restore it by first resetting the device , selecting the Settings icon on the home screen and / or in the iOS app Library, tapping on the General item , then on the Restore one and choosing the ‘ Initialize content and settings option . When prompted, then enter the unlock code of your iPhone and confirm what your intentions are by tapping the Initialize iPhone button .

Then, wait for the reset procedure to be completed and select the item to restore a previous backup that you see appear on the screen, then follow the wizard that is proposed to you.

If, on the other hand, you had backed up your iPhone from a computer, using iTunes (on Windows or macOS 10.14 Mojave and earlier) or via the Finder (on macOS 10.15 Catalina and later), connect the “iPhone by” to the computer, wait for the open the software or start it yourself and authorize the connection between the devices.

Afterwards, click on the phone icon that appeared on the left and click on the Restore iPhone button . Then confirm your intentions by pressing the button to proceed with the restoration and click on the Next and Accept buttons , in order to start the iPhone reset procedure.

The computer will initialize the device. After that, the iPhone will restart and can be configured by selecting a previously made backup .

For more details about when I described you in this step, you can refer to the information contained in my guide on how to restore iPhone backups .

Data recovery software

Even for the iPhone there are data recovery software that can be very useful to try to restore any photos that may have been deleted from the device. Among the most famous and effective is undoubtedly EaseUS MobiSaver , which is available for both Windows and macOS and allows the recovery of deleted data from the iPhone memory or from backups (both locally and on iCloud).

You can use it for free, but it allows you to save one photo or video at a time, or five contacts at the same time. To recover more data, you must necessarily purchase the paid version (which costs 64.95 euros).

Other programs of this type that you can consider to consider are Wondershare dr.fone (it is free, but it only allows you to view the recoverable data from the device’s memory, while to perform the recovery you have to buy the paid version that has prices starting from 59.99 euros) and Disk Drill (also in this case it is a free solution, but to get around the limit of 500 MB of data that can be restored that is imposed, you have to buy the paid version which costs 94.00 euros ). Both can be used on both Windows and macOS.

For more details about the solutions I have reported to you in this step, you can consult my guide on how to recover deleted iPhone photos and my review dedicated to the best data recovery software .