Ever wondered what if your pictures get lost either by mistake or intentionally? No matter what kind of pictures they may be, whether they contain your special moments, travel pictures or even work-related pictures, losing them can be really devastating. The good thing is that lost pictures are not gone forever. There are a few recovery workarounds available to retrieve your deleted photos with ease.

The most important key point for smooth recovery of deleted photos is to stop using the drive where the deleted photos were earlier stored. New files can overwrite your deleted photos and make recovery more difficult. In this quick guide, we’ll explore several ways on how to recover deleted photos from PC and restore them on PC. Let’s get started!

Can I Recover Permanently Deleted Photos on PC?

Yes, even if your deleted photos do not exist in the Recycle Bin folder, there are ways to retrieve your photos using third-party software dedicated for photo recovery. Usually, every photo which gets deleted on your computer lands in the Recycle Bin folder of your PC and stays there till its deletion by permanent removal or until the storage space occupied by that file gets overwritten.

However, recovery is not guaranteed. It depends on several factors, such as:

• How long ago the photos were deleted
• Whether the deleted photos are present in the Recycle Bin folder
• How many files are overwritten on the drive where the deleted photos were stored
• Whether you have any backup (local or cloud) of your deleted photos

That’s why it is important to avoid downloading, installing, or copying large files to the affected drive before attempting recovery.

Understanding Common Reasons for Photo Loss on PCs

Before you proceed with any specific photo recovery software or manual workarounds to get your deleted photos back, try to identify the exact reason for your photo loss. Photos can disappear due to a variety of reasons, including:

• Accidental Deletion: This is one of the major causes of photo loss, which involves deleting your photos during accidental deletion of files or folders.
• Emptying the Recycle Bin: The process of removing your photos from the Recycle Bin leads to permanent deletion of photos from your PC.
• Formatting: Formatting your hard drive or memory card makes it lose all its stored files, including photos.
• Malware or Virus Attacks: Malicious programs like viruses or malware, when they infect your PC, erase the stored files and folders.

How do I Recover Deleted Photos and Restore Them on PC?

Now that you’ve learnt about the reasons for photo loss on your PC, it’s time for you to start implementing appropriate photo recovery workarounds immediately. You could try the following options one by one in order to retrieve your photos:

Method 01: Recover Photos from Recycle Bin

As mentioned above, all deleted photos go to the Recycle Bin of your PC rather than being permanently deleted. Those photos remain in the folder until you manually empty the Recycle Bin, or until the space allocated to it fills up and the oldest files get automatically purged to make room for newer ones.

Below are the steps to recover your photos from the Recycle Bin of your PC:

• Open the Recycle Bin folder on your Windows PC.
• Then browse the deleted files and locate the photo which you want to recover.
• Also, use the search feature to search for the photo by its name.
• Choose Restore and wait till your photos are restored to their original location.

This process is very easy and does not require any additional photo recovery software installation. But unfortunately, it will not help you in case you have deleted those photos permanently or if your Recycle Bin is empty.

Method 02: Check Windows File History

Windows PC provides a built-in File History backup feature, which, when synced on your PC, automatically creates backup of your files. If you’ve enabled this backup utility before photo deletion, follow the below steps to restore your photos:

• Type Control Panel in the search box of your PC and launch Control Panel.
• Go to System and Security > File History > Restore personal files.
• Browse through available backups of required photos or folders.
• Click the Restore button.

Method 03: Check OneDrive or Other Cloud Storage

If you’ve synchronized your Windows PC with cloud backups like Google Drive, Dropbox, iCloud, etc., data recovery is possible from these cloud services. For instance, if your Pictures folder was synced with OneDrive, search for it in that online account. All you have to do is:

• Firstly, log in to your cloud storage service like Google Photos, OneDrive, iCloud, or Dropbox.
• Go to the Trash or Recently Deleted folder.
• Browse through the deleted photos and locate the one you want to restore.
• Click on Restore/Recover to download your recovered photos to your PC.

Method 04: Recover Deleted Photos Using Photo Recovery Software

Instances may occur when the manual workarounds fail to restore your deleted photos. In such cases, trying third-party photo recovery software like Stellar Photo Recovery can be helpful. This professional recovery tool performs thorough scanning of your PC or different storage devices to find recoverable files. Along with photos, you can use this tool to recover deleted videos and audio files in different file formats. The software also supports recovery of RAW image files from various popular camera brands.

The Stellar Photo Recovery program is designed to work for both Windows and macOS machines. One good thing about this photo recovery program is that it gives you the freedom to preview the files you are about to recover on your computer. Below are the steps to help you recover the deleted photos using this recovery program:

Step 1: Go ahead and download the Stellar Photo Recovery from its official site. Once you open the program, choose Photos on the homepage (since you are going to recover your photos) and hit the Next button.

Step 2: Select the hard drive where the deleted photos were stored and click on Scan.

Step 3: Pick the desired photos and click on Recover to recover them to your computer.

Conclusion

Losing photos does not mean that they will be gone forever. You should start with simple workarounds like exploring the Recycle Bin and other previously created data backups, such as Windows backups, File History, cloud storage services, etc. If all of the above fails, third-party photo recovery tools like Stellar Photo Recovery can help you.

You should avoid using the affected drive, as continuous usage may overwrite deleted data and make recovery complex. In case of irreplaceable pictures, it would be wise to create several copies of your photos to avoid total loss due to accidental deletion, formatting, failure of hardware and any other reasons for losing the pictures.