Often, yes, as long as nothing has been saved over them yet. Stop saving new files to that drive and run a recovery tool soon. If the photos were on an SSD, your chances are lower than with a regular hard drive or a memory card.
5 Best Photo Recovery Tools to Recover Deleted Pictures
Few things are worse than opening your camera’s memory card and finding your photos gone. Maybe you deleted them by mistake, or someone else did.
The good news is that deleted photos can often be recovered. The catch is that recovery tools vary widely: some are built for photographers, some for general file recovery, and some for badly damaged storage. Picking the wrong one can waste time, or worse, put the remaining data at risk.
This guide covers five of the best photo recovery tools, what each one does well, and how to protect your files before you start.
Table of Contents:
Before Running a Scan, Protect the Original Photos
Treat a deleted-photo problem as a write-protection problem first. Photo recovery software can only help if the data is still on the card or drive, and no program can bring back every image.
- Stop using the affected device. Don’t take new pictures or copy anything onto it.
- Install the software somewhere else. Connect the card through a card reader and run the recovery tool from your computer’s own drive, never from the storage you’re trying to recover.
- Save recovered photos to a separate drive. Use a different physical drive or external device, and leave the original untouched until you’ve checked the recovered copies.
These steps aren’t exciting, but they prevent new data from overwriting the photos you’re trying to save.
At a Glance: Five Tools Compared
| Tool | Pricing | Supported OS | Pick it if | Watch out for |
| Stellar Photo Recovery | Free, can recover 10 photos | Windows & Mac | You shoot RAW or lost a lot of photos | Recover photos with original file names |
| Recoverit | Paid, limited free version | Windows & Mac | You want a step-by-step process with previews | Free version limits on big jobs |
| Recuva | Free | Windows only | It’s a simple deletion and the card still works | Unusual RAW files, badly damaged cards |
| PhotoRec | Free | Windows, Mac, & Linux | The card was formatted or shows as corrupted | Lost file names and folders |
| R-Studio | Paid, free demo | Windows, Mac, & Linux | Simpler tools failed or the drive won’t open | Takes time to learn |
The Five Photo Recovery Tools
1. Stellar Photo Recovery: Best Overall
If photos are what you lost, start with Stellar Photo Recovery. It has been developed for pictures and videos and works with numerous memory cards, cameras and hard drives.
It reads the usual formats (JPEG, PNG, TIFF) and also RAW files from Canon, Nikon, Fujifilm, Sony and other camera makers. If you shoot RAW, that matters more than anything else on this list. While it scans, you can preview what it’s finding, sort results by file type or folder, and pause the scan to pick it up later. If your format isn’t listed, you can add it yourself.
Two things to know before you buy. The Windows version needs 64-bit Windows, so make sure you download the right edition for your computer. And free version allows you to save 10 photos completely free. 10 photos are ok for software evaluation or for home user. If you are professional photographers and need to save 100s of photos then register the full version to get activation key of software.
2. Recoverit: Best for a Guided Workflow
Recoverit walks you through recovery step by step, which helps if you’ve never done this before. It can pull photos and videos from cameras, drones, SD and CF cards and external drives, on both Windows and Mac.
It works best when your computer still sees the card. You scan, look through the previews, and save only the shots you want. It’s paid software, though, and the free version has limits. Read what the free version allows before you start a big job, so you don’t hit a wall halfway through.
3. Recuva: Best Free Starting Point on Windows
On Windows and don’t want to spend anything yet? Try Recuva. It can recover files from your computer’s drives, the Recycle Bin, camera cards, USB sticks and external hard drives. If the quick scan comes up empty, run the deep scan. It takes longer but digs further.
Recuva isn’t made with photographers in mind. It may struggle with less common RAW formats or a card that’s badly damaged. But for an ordinary “I deleted the wrong folder” moment on a card that still works, it often does the job for free.
4. PhotoRec: Best Free Option for Damaged Media
PhotoRec is free and open-source, and it works differently from the others. Instead of reading the card’s file system, it searches the raw data for the patterns that mark the start of each photo. That’s why it can still find pictures on a card that’s been formatted or corrupted, even when other tools show almost nothing. It runs on Windows, macOS and Linux and supports SD and CompactFlash cards.
The downside is that you usually lose the original file names and folders. Expect one big folder of files with numbered names that you’ll have to sort through yourself. It also doesn’t write anything to the card you’re recovering from, which is exactly what you want when the card is already in bad shape.
5. R-Studio: Best for Technical Recovery Cases
R-Studio is for the harder cases: a drive that won’t open, a damaged partition, or a setup with several disks. It works with Windows, macOS and Linux file systems and shows a lot of low-level detail about the disk and the scan.
If you’ve just lost a few family photos, this is more tool than you need, and the screens can feel overwhelming. Pick it when a simpler tool has already failed and you’re happy to spend some time learning how it works.
How to Choose Without Chasing a Recovery-Rate Promise
Don’t pick a tool because of a big recovery percentage on its website. A number like that means little unless you know what device was tested, what went wrong with it, and what counted as a recovered photo. Your card isn’t their test card.
It’s more useful to match the tool to what actually happened:
- You deleted photos from a card that still works, on Windows: start with Recuva, since it’s free.
- You shoot RAW or want to see previews before saving: go with Stellar or Recoverit.
- The card was formatted or shows up as corrupted: try PhotoRec.
- The drive won’t open or the partition is damaged: use R-Studio, or go to a professional.
Previews help more than you’d expect. One card might hold the only good shot from a birthday next to 200 almost identical burst photos of a pigeon, and being able to see what you’re saving cuts the sorting time a lot. Just remember that no software can bring back photos that have already been overwritten, or fix a card that’s physically broken.
If the card keeps disconnecting, gets hot, or acts strangely while scanning, stop. Every extra attempt puts more stress on a card that may be on its way out. At that point, a professional data recovery service is the safer choice.
Before You Put the Card Back in the Camera
Don’t rush to reuse the card. First, save the recovered photos to another drive. Open a handful at full size, because a thumbnail can look fine even when the full image is damaged. Then make a second copy somewhere else.
Once you’re sure the files are good, format the card in your camera, not on your computer. And from now on, back up your cards regularly. Recovery software can get you out of trouble, but it’s no substitute for a backup.
Frequently Asked Questions
Can I get photos back after emptying the Recycle Bin?
Can I save recovered photos back to the same SD card?
No. Save them to a different drive. Writing to the original card can overwrite the photos you haven’t recovered yet.
Can I recover photos from a card I formatted?
Often, yes. A format usually leaves the photo data in place until new files are written over it. Tools like PhotoRec that scan the raw data are a good bet here. Don’t take any more pictures on the card or format it again, and run the recovery as soon as you can. No tool can promise to get everything back, though.
