How to Recover Deleted Pictures

Don't Panic! At least not yet. There is a good chance you can find, recover or get back deleted pictures. Retrieving deleted pictures from your digital camera card after accidentally deleting them is not only possible, but there is free software out there to help you find and recover the pictures.

Which Free Software Recovers Deleted Photos?

Several photo recovery programs are available and give you options to find and recover deleted photos on digital cameras, digital camera cards, and files from the computer. We are not affiliated with any of these companies.

 

Recuva - Simple free file recovery tool for Windows PCs, Recycle Bin, digital camera card or MP3 player.

ZAR - Recovers pictures for free in demo mode, other file recovery functionality requires a license

 

Effectiveness of Photo Recovery Programs

While the free photo retrieval software listed should help out, there are several important things to keep in mind. When you originally delete a file, it is marked as free space so the next time your camera takes a picture, it will overwrite this space with the new picture information. If you accidentally deleted the card, it is a very good idea to stop taking pictures with that card. No matter the size, the next picture you take could overwrite the information with the new picture. It will be much harder, if not impossible, for a program to figure out which parts of the information were the "old" picture and which parts were the new one.

 

Also, keep in mind, paid photo recovery software is not necessarily better photo recovery software BUT, if the options above don't seem to be working to find or recover the pictures you are trying to find, many of the paid programs offer the ability to "see" the files that particular program could recover once you purchase the license. In other words, you can preview the deleted files and if you can see the picture, chances are the program will be able to recover it.