How to Recover Deleted Photos from a Computer/External Hard Drive (3 Ways)

To recover deleted photos, follow this quick 3-step guide:

Step 1: Download, install, and launch the photo recovery software.

Step 2: Select the disk partition that had contained the deleted pictures.

Step 3: Scan, preview and recover the deleted photos.

What is the best photo recovery software?

Depending on how you lost your photos, you have different methods of recovery available from your hard drive.

If you delete pictures by pressing the “Delete” key or right-clicking a photo and selecting “Delete,” you can easily recover the images from the Recycle Bin on your computer's hard drive or external hard drive.

If you permanently delete photos from your hard drive by using “Shift + Delete” or formatting, the lost photos will bypass the Recycle Bin and be gone forever. Under this circumstance, the best way to recover deleted photos is to use a professional data recovery tool – Data Recovery Wizard.

Main Features of Data Recovery Wizard:

• Restore deleted or formatted photos, videos, music, emails, Microsoft Office files, and more
• Retrieve lost files from internal/external hard drives, memory cards, USBs, digital cameras, and other storage devices
• Recover files after emptying the Recycle Bin, system crashes/reinstallations, virus attacks, and other data loss scenarios
• Retrieve files from FAT/exFAT/NTFS/ext2/ext3/HFS+/ReFS partitions

Download the Data Recovery Wizard tool now for a free quick scan and retrieval of your photos.

How to use a Hard Drive Data Recovery Wizard tool to restore photos

As one of the top-notch data recovery software for Windows, Data Recovery Wizard helps you search, preview, and recover lost photos in all data loss situations, including format recovery, lost partition recovery, and RAW partition recovery.

The software is compatible with all Windows OS, including Windows 10/8/7/XP, and enables you to search and recover photos lost due to formatting, deletion, or lost partitions from various storage media, such as internal/external (removable) hard drives, USB flash drives, digital cameras, memory sticks, SD cards, and more. Feel free to download the software and follow the steps to retrieve photos from your hard drive.

Step 1: Choose a location and start scanning

Hover the mouse over the SD card, camera, or hard drive partition from where you deleted/lost photos, and click “Scan”.

Select the location, then scan for lost photos

Step 2. Select the photos you want to restore

When the scan is finished, select “Pictures” on the left. If you're looking for lost photos, click “Lost” at the top of the list. Then, you can filter your photos by device, type, and date.

Step 3: Recover Lost Photos

After the preview, click “Recover” and choose another location to save the photos you want.

Using data recovery software is the most effective way to recover pictures from the hard drive, but it's not the only method. As you may know, you can also use the Command Prompt for data recovery. Apart from using CMD, you can also seek manual data recovery services at a data recovery service center to get your pictures back from the hard drive, but this would cost much more than other alternatives (learn more in the article about hard drive recovery cost).

Recover deleted pictures on Mac is another key point of Data Recovery Wizard tool. Move on and find the solution.

How can I recover my pictures from the recycle bin?

If you didn't permanently delete the photos from your computer's hard drive, they'll still be in the Recycling Bin. You can search for the items and click Restore.

Step 1: Open the Recycle Bin.

Click to open Recycle Bin.

Step 2: Search for the photo's name, right-click on the image, and select Restore. Alternatively, you can select a photo first and then click "Restore Selected Items" on the toolbar.

How to Recover Photos from Your Hard Drive with Backup and Restore

If you've previously backed up your photos to your computer, you can use the "Restore Backup" utility to get them back. If you don't have a backup in place, you may be able to use this feature to recover deleted photos.

How to backup files

Step 1: Go to Settings > Update & Security > Backup.

Step 2. Click the Plus to add a drive.

Step 3: Choose the target drive, and File History will begin backing up.

How to Recover Deleted Photos

1. Type "Restore files" into the search box, then click Open.

Step 2: Select the items you wish to recover and click the green Recover button.