Can I Recover Photos Not Backed Up?

Why Is It Possible to Recover Photos Not Backed Up?

When you delete a photo, the file isn’t immediately erased from your storage device. Instead, the space it occupies is marked as available for reuse, while the data remains intact until it’s overwritten. This unique characteristic of digital storage makes it possible to recover deleted photos if you act quickly.

Moreover, modern recovery tools and methods leverage the digital footprints left by these files to restore them, even if they seem permanently lost. The underlying data might still be recoverable if your photos disappeared due to accidental deletion, formatting, or system errors.

Check if Lost Photos Are Permanently Deleted

Have you checked the Recycle Bin for any lost photos? You may have mistakenly erased them while shifting papers to the trash. If you didn't use the Shift + Delete shortcut to skip the Recycle Bin, they might still be there.

Open the Recycle Bin. If your lost pictures are there, select them and click Restore the selected items under Manage. You can also click Restore all items to recover everything. Right-click a file and hit Restore.

5 Ways to recover lost photos/not backed up photos

If you can’t find your photos in Recycle Bin, you may find solutions in this part.

Way 1. Restore Photos from Previous Versions

Restoring images to prior versions involves returning them to their original state. Reverting to a previous version that included your lost photos will recover them from a File History backup or restore point. That means you can recover them even after overwriting.

Step 1. Right-click the folder that you save the original photos before deleting and  select "Restore Previous Versions".

Step 2. Select the version you want to retrieve, and click "Restore" button.

Way 2. Recover Lost Photos with File History

If you did empty the Recycle Bin, you can try another approach. You can also recover deleted images if you backed them up using File History, a system backup program, or Backup and Restore.

Step 1. Type "Restore files" in the Search icon, and then click "Open"  to restore your files with File History.

Step 2. Find the deleted pictures or the folders which contain the pictures

Step 3. Select the green refresh button to recover deleted pictures to their original places.

Way 3. Recover Lost Pictures from CMD Lines

To deal with the problem of losing images, Command Prompt is a useful way for determining how to recover deleted photos. However, utilizing CMD cannot guarantee a complete recovery. In addition, you must pay close attention to each subsequent step in case of errors that could result in data loss.

Step 1. Type Command Prompt in Search icon or Start and Run as administrator.

Step 2. Input chkdsk [drive letter]:/f and tap Enter key. Then, type Y and hit Enter to confirm and proceed to examine.

Step 3. Type in [drive letter] and hit Enter again. And then, enter attrib -h -r -s /s /d [drive letter]:\*.* to start recovering files on this disk.

Way 4. Recover Not Backed Up Photos from Windows File Recovery

Windows File Recovery is a command-line application for recovering files that have been deleted, formatted, or corrupted. It supports the NTFS, ReFS, exFAT, and FAT file systems on both internal and external drives, as well as detachable storage media such as USB drives and SD cards.

Step 1. Go to Microsoft Store to Get Windows File Recovery.

Step 2. Run Windows File Recovery as administrator, then input the command line based on syntax:

winfr source-drive: destination-drive: [/mode] [/switches]

For example: winfr C: E: /regular /n Users\< username>\Downloads\. The first drive letter is the source, and the second is the destination, so replace them accordingly and type the correct file path.

Way 5. Employ professional recovery software

However, if you want to tackle this problem properly, the secure and user-friendly software AOMEI FastRecovery may be your best option for recovering your erased images. It may also be used to restore other types of items, including photographs, documents, movies, audio, HTML, and so on, if you clear the Recycle Bin or do not backup.

As a strong assistant, it can also recover files from a formatted hard disk, an external hard drive, or an SD card. It can successfully handle everyday computer issues. Windows operating platforms including Windows 11/10/8.1/8/7 are supported. It also supports Windows Server 2008 (R2), 2012 (R2), 2016, 2019, 2022, 2025 and SBS 2008/2011.

Step 1. Install and launch AOMEI FastRecovery. Choose the exact partition or disk where your data lost and click Scan.

Step 2. Then, the recovery tool start to scan and search. lt will execute the “Quickly Scan" first for finding your deleted data fast, and then execute the “Deep Scan" for searching other lost data.

Step 3. Once the scan is completed, all deleted files, recycle bins and other missing files will be displayed. Please select the file you would like to recover and then click "Recover".

Step 4. Then, select a folder path to save your recovered files.

Step 5. Wait patiently for this process of recovering ends.

To sum up

Can I recover photos not backed up? The answer is already here; all you have to do is choose the desired one. On Windows, most solutions are for permanently recovering photos. Items permanently removed are not kept in the recycle bin. Furthermore, only existing (not deleted) virus-affected files will reveal hidden folders in the CMD using the attribute command work. Additionally, you have Windows File Recovery, which exclusively recovers corrupted, deleted, or formatting-related lost files. Consequently, since it addresses almost all data loss scenarios, data recovery programs like AOMEI FastRecovery are your best choice.