How to Recover Deleted Photos From an SD Card?

Losing important pictures from any storage device, including your SD card is a frustrating issue. If you ever lose any memorable or precious pictures, don’t start freaking out. Whether your pictures get deleted due to accidental deletion, power failure, virus or malware attacks, or any other reasons, there’s always a chance to get them back. 

Luckily, there are various ways to recover photos from SD card. Here, in this comprehensive guide, we will guide you through various methods to help you know how to recover deleted photos from an SD card. Just go with these methods to retrieve your lost memories easily.

Can I Recover Lost or Deleted Pictures From an SD Card?

Many of you must be wondering whether it is possible to restore deleted pictures from an SD card. The answer is Yes! Just like other storage devices, the deleted pictures of SD cards are not permanently deleted in one go. They remained on the card until the space it was occupying was not overwritten by any new file. So whenever you encounter such data loss issues on your SD card, immediately stop saving new files on it. 

What Causes the Deletion of Pictures from SD Cards?

Before you apply any SD card recovery method to recover deleted pictures, it is important to learn the exact cause of your data loss issues. Here are some main reasons why pictures might get deleted from your SD card:

• Human Error: You may have accidentally deleted pictures from your SD card while navigating through other files and folders.
• Formatting: When you format your SD card, either intentionally or unintentionally, it deletes all the stored data, including photos.
• File System Corruption: Many times, SD cards experience file system errors or corruption, which makes the data, including pictures, inaccessible or even leads to their deletion.
• Virus or Malware: Infection by viruses or malware can corrupt or delete files stored on any storage device, including photos.
• Physical Damage: If your SD card is damaged due to water exposure or any other reason, it can disrupt data storage and cause photos to be deleted or become unreadable.

Along with the above reasons, there are many other causes as well, like software or hardware issues, improper ejections, etc. why pictures stored on your SD card get deleted. 

Quick Methods to Recover Deleted Pictures from SD Cards

Now that you are familiar with the reasons for the deletion of pictures, it’s time to apply proper photo recovery methods to get your photos deleted from your SD card. Here’s how to recover deleted photos from an SD card with both professional photo recovery tools and some manual methods:

Method 01: Recover Deleted Photos Using Photo Recovery Tool

Let’s start with the easiest method first. You can use specialized photo recovery software to recover deleted photos from an SD card. There are several reliable options that you can try to restore deleted photos on both Windows and Mac operating devices, but Stellar Photo Recovery is our all-time favourite. This all-in-one recovery tool supports the recovery of deleted files from any source, including internal or external HDDs, SD cards, USBs, and many more. 

Some best features that make Stellar Photo Recovery best for your data recovery include:

• Recover deleted pictures from formatted or corrupted SD cards/Memory cards/TF cards.
• Support recovery of pictures deleted due to formatting, lost partitions, RAW Recovery, etc.
• The software supports the recovery of pictures of multiple file types, including JPEG, JPG, TIFF, GIF, PNG, and more.
• Not only photo recovery, but the software also supports the recovery of deleted videos of multiple formats. 
• It allows you to preview the recoverable files so you can select and save files as per your need.

Now let’s see how to recover photos from SD card using the Stellar Photo Recovery tool:

• Download and install the Stellar Photo Recovery software on your device. Connect your SD to your device using any card reader and launch the software.
• Select the location, i.e., your SD card from where you need to restore deleted pictures and click Scan. 

• Wait till the scanning process is completed. After that preview the recoverable files and select the ones that you need to restore.

• At last, click the Recover button to save the recovered photos at the desired storage location.

Method 02: Restore Deleted Pictures Via Backup

If you have created a backup of your deleted files on any external storage device or cloud storage location, such as iCloud, it will be easy to recover your files. On Windows devices, you can use the in-built File History utility to restore deleted pictures. All you need to do is to enable the File History backup option on your Windows PC, then follow the below steps to recover pictures from SD cards using Windows File History:

• Press the Windows + I keys on your device to launch the Settings app.
• Click on Update & Security, and then go to Backup.

• Scroll down and click the Restore files from a current backup option. 

• Now, from the backup folder, select the files you need to restore and click the green Restore button to restore selected files. 

Tips to Prevent Picture Deletion Issues on SD Cards

No one wants terrible data loss issues in life. It is important to avoid such issues from your end. Here are some tips to avoid SD card data loss issues in the future:

• Always create a backup of your important files and folders in multiple safe locations. 
• Make sure you are using a trusted card reader while connecting your SD card to your computer.
• Safely eject your memory card to avoid corruption issues. 
• Avoid saving new files on your SD card once you encounter data loss issues on it.
• If data loss occurs, use a reliable SD card recovery method to restore your lost files. 

Conclusion

If you encounter the accidental deletion of photos from your SD card, don’t worry it is always possible to recover your lost memories successfully. However, it is important to act quickly, choose reliable photo recovery software, and avoid overwriting the deleted data. Tools like Stellar Photo Recovery offers all the features that you might need for smooth file recovery. Additionally, creating proper backups of your files can help safeguard your precious photos in the future.