Samsung Photo Recovery: How Do I Recover Deleted or Lost Photos on Samsung

Aspire to recover accidentally deleted photos on your Samsung Galaxy phone, but can't make the first move because of failing to figure out the Samsung photo recovery solutions? We've broken down a list of ways aiming to help you out of the photo loss and get all deleted or lost photos back.

Restoring backups from Samsung Cloud is an obvious option for free Samsung Galaxy photo recovery. When photo deletion occurs earlier than when a copy is created, a robust tool named Android Data Recovery can fix it up and show you how to retrieve deleted photos on Samsung phone without backups easily. Plus, Data Recovery tool can lend a hand to recover all deleted photos that were saved in Camera folder in SD card from a Samsung phone. We've also explained how to restore deleted photos backed up using Google Photos or other online backup services.

1. Samsung Cloud

You deleted a photo from Samsung Gallery app, moved it to Trash or Recycle Bin, and then emptied the Trash or Recycle Bin? This often results in permanent deletion on photos, but it's not the case if Gallery's Auto Sync feature is ON and the photo have automatically backed up to Samsung Cloud in advance.

This native Samsung backup tool offers a Trash folder, where you can find and restore the synced photos and videos that were deleted in the past 15 days. If the deleted photo is still in that grace period, it can be recovered from any Samsung device. This is what you need to do:

• On your Samsung phone, tap Settings > Accounts and backups or Cloud and accounts.
• Choose Samsung Cloud, then tap Gallery.
• To recover deleted photos from Samsung Galaxy, head to Trash.
• Select the photo(s) you need to restore and tap Restore.

Once completed, go to your native Gallery app and check if it shows up the recovered photo(s).

Optional: How to recover deleted photos from Gallery when Samsung phone is lost or damaged

Make sure you've turned on two-step verification on your Samsung phone: Open Settings app and tap your profile image in the top right corner of the screen. Then, tap Password and security > Two-step verification > Galaxy device notification and activate your device.

• Go to support.samsungcloud.com in any browser.
• Click on Sign in and enter your Samsung Account and password. Then, hit Sign in. If asked, click Send notification, and then tap Allow on your phone to allow access to Samsung Cloud data.
• Choose Gallery from the left sidebar. It'll then show all photos and videos that have synced with Samsung Cloud.
• Select specific photo(s) or check All option to choose all pictures.
• Press the Download icon in the upper right corner to save them on your computer.

Now, locate the folder where the recovered pictures are saved and if needed, connect your Samsung device to the computer, then transfer the pictures back to your phone by dragging and dropping them to the DCIM folder in the device.

2. Samsung Galaxy photo recovery software

Your next station should be Android Data Recovery if you still can't undelete photos from Trash in Gallery or recover Gallery pictures that disappeared on Samsung Galaxy. It delivers an effortless and safe way to get deleted photos back on Samsung. All Samsung phones like Samsung Galaxy S series (S8, S9, S10, S20, or later), Note series (Note9, Note10, Note20, or later), A series, Z series, M series or J series, and all Samsung tablets are supported.

This tool is more of a user-oriented Samsung deleted pictures recovery tool, with which users can select photos (or other specific file types like video, messages, audios, etc.) to scan, locate desired photo(s) and select all or particular images to recover. Without further ado, download and install the application and learn how to recover deleted photos from Samsung gallery via this wizard.

• To recover Samsung photos, fire up the software and connect your phone to the computer. Then, click on "Android Data Recovery" mode to proceed.



• Turn on USB debugging on your device. You can do this by simply tapping Allow from the pop-up "Allow USB debugging" message on your phone or following the on-screen steps.



• Choose type(s) of files to scan. For the purpose of recovering deleted pictures from a Samsung phone, put a tick on the box next to Gallery and Picture Library respectively and hit Next button.



• To initiate a deep scan to find all Samsung deleted photos, a root of your phone is required. Press Rooting Tools button and download a tool called KingoRoot to get the device rooted. You can find a detailed guide on here: how to safely root and unroot Samsung



• Once rooted, it will start scanning your Galaxy phone completely for lost pictures. When it's over, you'll come to a screen displaying all the recoverable photo files. Click the image thumbnail to preview and select the photo(s) for recovery.



• Press Recover button. From the dialog box that opens, specify an output folder to save the recovered photos and click on Recover button to trigger Samsung picture recovery.

Done! This trick helps recover deleted pictures on Samsung phone internal memory. If you intend to recover image that were deleted from microSD card in your phone or tablet, keep reading.

3. Recover photos from microSD card

Give Data Recovery a shot if you're seeking an efficient way to undelete photos on Samsung Galaxy SD card. It focuses on getting back permanently deleted pictures with their original filename, size, location and works well with all image formats like JPG, JPEG, PNG, BMP, TIFF/TIF, PSD, GIF, RAW, and more.

• Launch the photo recovery software on a PC or Mac.
• Get an SD card reader and insert the SD card into it, then connect to the computer.
• Highlight Image option and select the drive for the detected SD card.
• Then, click on Scan button and it'll initiate a quick scan around the SD card storage by default. If you can't find the photos you want after the quick searching, you're granted to hit Deep Scan button option on the top of the screen for a deeper scan.



• Select the photos you've lost or deleted from SD storage in Samsung and press Recover button.



• In the next screen, select a path on the machine for saving the recovered pictures, click on Recover button again and you're good to go.

4. Google Photos

If the you've synced the photos and videos in Gallery app to the Google Account, there's a possibility that the deleted pictures have been automatically backed up on Google Photos. You can take a look at Trash in Google Photo and see if you can restore deleted photos on Samsung.

• Open photos.google.com using a web browser on your PC or Mac.
• Enter your Google Account and password to log in.
• To the left of opening page, click on Trash.
• Place the mouse cursor over the photo you need to recover and highlight the photo by ticking the checkmark in the top-left corner of each picture
• At the upper right of the screen, hit Restore > Restore.

The photo will then be restored back to the album it used to be stored in. Note that the resolution limit that Google sets up for photos is 16 megapixels, which means that a photo will be resized to 16MP if it's larger than 16MP.

Extra step: How can I retrieve deleted photos from my Samsung phone without a computer?

• Open Google Photos app on your Samsung phone or tablet and log in to your Google Account.
• From the bottom of the screen, tap Library > Trash.
• Touch and hold the photo(s) you want to restore. You can also tap Select to choose the desired picture to restore.
• Tap Restore at the bottom of the display.

When the restoration is done, the retrieved photos will be returned back to your Samsung's Gallery app, Google Photos library, or any albums that they were originally saved in.

Essential: Google Photos only keep the deleted photos in the Trash for 60 days and it's worth mentioning that the deleted images can't be restored from Trash in Google Photos under the following situations:

• You haven't backed up the photos prior to the permanent deletion
• The deleted photo files have retained in Trash for more than 60 days
• The Trash is emptied and the deleted photos have been completely removed from the Trash
• The photos are permanently erased from the Trash

In this respect, you have no choice but verify if the deleted photos have been backed up to other cloud services or seek help from a third-party Samsung photo recovery program to get back the recently deleted photos on Samsung.

A huge tip on preventing Samsung photo loss

Though there're so many techniques for Galaxy photo recovery, it still matters to take some actions below to avoid losing pictures from your Samsung phone in the future.

• Remember to save the photos in Gallery's albums after editing it.
• Back up the cherished images by keeping a copy of them in the cloud (Samsung Cloud, Google Photos, OneDrive, etc.) or in your computer.
• Use trustworthy anti-virus software for extra malware protection on your Samsung device.

FAQs on Samsung Galaxy photo recovery

Q: Can I retrieve deleted photos on Samsung?

If you've recently removed photos by tapping Delete button in Gallery app, it'll be moved to Trash or Recycle Bin first. If you haven't emptied the Trash or Recycle Bin, odds are that the deleted photos are still there and remain recoverable.

• Unlock your Samsung device and run Gallery app.
• Tap the Menu icon from the upper right corner.
• From the resulting option list, choose Trash or Recycle Bin. A list of photos and videos that were deleted in the past 15 days will show up.
• Select the photo(s) you need to recover and tap Restore to get deleted pictures back to Galaxy.

Q: How do I recover permanently deleted photos from my Samsung

See if you've set your Gallery to sync with OneDrive, Google Drive or Dropbox automatically. If Yes, step through the instructions below to restore accidentally deleted photos from the backups.

1. OneDrive

• On your Samsung device, open OneDrive app.
• Choose the Photos tab located at the bottom.
• Select the photo(s) you'd like to download back to your smartphone.
• Tap the three-dots icon at the top right corner of the screen and choose Save option.
• Tap Save again to confirm. Wait until the photo download process is over.

2. Google Drive

• Head to drive.google.com and sign in with your Google Account.
• Locate the folder that contains the photos you wish to restore.
• Choose the photos by holding down Ctrl key and clicking on the photo(s) you need to retrieve.
• Right-click the selected photos or hit the three-dots icon in the upper right of the screen and press Download options.

3. Dropbox

• Launch Dropbox app on your device.
• Tap the Menu icon in the top left corner, then choose Photos.
• Mark the picture(s) you'd like to restore.
• Tap three-dots icon in the upper right corner and select Save to Device option to get back the photos.