How to Recover Deleted Photos: A Comprehensive Guide to Recovering Deleted Photos on Your Laptop

How to Recover Deleted Photos: A Comprehensive Guide to Recovering Deleted Photos on Your Laptop
7 min read
03 December 2023

Photos and videos are valuable memories on our laptop and we can’t afford to delete them. We capture most of our photos on our smartphones and transfer them on our laptops when we run out of space. There are instances when we accidentally delete photos during the transfer process or right after we transfer them. There can be various reasons for data loss but there are ways to recover deleted photos on your laptop. Let’s explore the best ones!

How You May Be a Victim of Data Loss

There are different reasons behind data loss or deleted photos. The most common reasons are listed below.

Accidentally Deleted Photos

There are chances when you are trying to move, copy, or make some free space on your smartphone and you accidentally delete images without any backup. If the file size is less, it will be a temporary deletion and can be recovered.

Corrupt Photos

At times you may transfer photos in unreadable format or the file formation is corrupt due to software or hardware issues. These corrupt files can be deleted automatically from the Windows OS. A photo recovery software can recover and fix this issue.

Malware or Virus Attack

Malware or virus attacks can also corrupt your images and make them unreadable. All the photos may have different file types and the file size may also appear as zero bytes. The best Antivirus program can help here.

Automated Disk Cleanup Utilities

Automated disk cleanup utilities may automatically delete some of your old files and photos without your permission to free up more disk space. You should always preview the items you are deleting manually or with a software program.

Faulty Storage Device

There are times when a storage device suddenly stops working. It can be due to faulty hardware or corrupt file format. You can check external storage devices on other ports or other computers.

Windows Error

If there is an error in the Windows file system or the photo viewer/converter app, you may not be able to find your photos in the right format and can’t preview them.

Prevent Accidentally Deleted Photos

As they say, prevention is better than cure! You can keep a few points in mind to prevent accidental deletion or loss of photos.

How to Recover Deleted Photos: A Comprehensive Guide to Recovering Deleted Photos on Your Laptop

Avoid customizing the default image settings and system settings.

Take regular backups of your photos and other media files on external drives.

Recover deleted photos on your laptop before new data is written on the sectors.

Always use the Delete key instead of Shift + Delete key to send photos to the Recycle Bin.

Use the Best Photo Recovery Software for Windows to recover photos automatically.

Keep the cloud drive in sync with your Images folder to keep a cloud backup.

Secure your PC with the Best Antivirus Software for Windows.

Preview and check images before deleting them.

Recover Deleted Photos from Recycle Bin

Step 1. Double-click on the Recycle Bin folder on the Desktop or search for the same.

Step 2. Select the photos that you wish to recover from the Recycle Bin. You can select multiple images by holding down the Ctrl key.

Step 3. Click on the Restore selected images button on the top ribbon to restore them back to the destination folder.

Recover Accidentally Deleted Photos Using Previous Version

The Previous Version option is one of the best solutions to recover deleted photos. It only works if you have enabled the System Restore option and the File History option on your PC. Here is how to recover deleted photos using the Previous Version option.

Step 1. Press Win + E to access the Windows Explorer window.

Step 2. Browse and select the folder from where you lost your photos.

Step 3. Right-click on the folder and click on the ‘Restore Previous Versions’ option. If you are unable to see this option, click on the ‘Show More Options’ in the context menu.

Step 4. The Folder Properties window will open with the Previous Versions tab.

Step 5. Let it scan and come up with folder versions.

Step 6. Select the folder that you think should have your deleted photos.

Step 7. Click on the Restore button. Let it process and then click on the Apply and Okay buttons. Double-click on the folder to explore and see if you were able to recover deleted photos on your laptop.

Recover Deleted Photos from Cloud Storage

If you have backed up your photos on the external storage device or on the cloud storage device, you can recover deleted photos back to your device.

Step 1. Access your browser or the Cloud Drive if configured.

Step 2. Browse your photo albums and select what needs to be recovered.

Step 3. Click on the Download button. Select the destination folder and the photos will be downloaded on your device.

If you have a backup on the external drive, connect the drive to your PC to copy and paste photos from the external drive to your PC.

Use Photos Recovery Software

If you are unable to recover deleted photos with these manual steps on how to recover deleted photos, use the best photo recovery software. The Photos Recovery Software is one of the best methods to recover deleted photos on your Windows PC. You can quickly recover deleted photos, videos, music files, and other media files using this application. It works best on all the latest versions of the Windows operating system. You can recover media files from hard drive partitions, SD cards, External Drives, USB Flash Drives, or from other storage locations.

Step 1. Download and install Photos Recovery from its official website.

Step 2. Register your application with the license key to unlock recovery features.

Step 3. Select the device or storage location that needs to be scanned.

Step 4. Let it scan and come up with the results.

Step 5. Preview photos that need to be recovered.

Step 6. Select photos manually or auto-mark all the recoverable photos.

Step 7. Click on the Recover button to start the recovery process.

Final Words

This article on how to recover deleted photos has the best manual steps that you can perform on Windows to recover deleted photos on your laptop. Accidentally deleted photos are easy to recover if they are identified as soon as they are deleted. The Best Photos Recovery app can quickly recover unlimited photos, videos, or music files from any storage device that you connect to your PC.

In case you have found a mistake in the text, please send a message to the author by selecting the mistake and pressing Ctrl-Enter.
Anya Baker 18
Joined: 11 months ago
Comments (0)

    No comments yet

You must be logged in to comment.

Sign In / Sign Up