Emergency · photo memory card
Accidentally deleted photos: the next safe steps
How do I get photos back after deleting them by accident?
Short answer
Stop shooting immediately: deletion releases the directory entries, but the JPEG and RAW blocks remain until later captures overwrite them. Take the card out, scan it read-only for exactly the formats your camera records, such as JPG plus CR3, ARW or NEF, and save the rescued photos to another drive.
The situation
A selection of photographs was deleted in-camera or during culling.
Deleting in camera removes the pointer to a picture, not the picture. The JPEG and RAW data keeps its place on the card until a later frame is written into the same area, which is why the next shutter press matters more than the deletion itself.
01 / Diagnose
Work out what actually disappeared
Culling on the camera screen, or a delete-all command during review, releases the directory entries for the selected frames. In a dual-format setup the camera often removes the JPEG and the RAW sibling together, so both need to be looked for. The sensor data survives as long as the card stays out of the shooting rotation.
Deletion can release directory entries before JPEG or RAW blocks are overwritten by later captures.
Check the last known path, trash and backups without writing to the original device.
02 / Protect the source
Preserve the best recovery chance
- 1
Stop the shoot on this card immediately, take it out of the body and continue with a spare card if the job has to go on.
- 2
Write down which frame numbers are gone and which formats your camera records, for example JPG together with CR3, ARW or NEF.
- 3
Connect the card through a card reader and scan it read-only, limiting the search to exactly those photo formats instead of every file type.
- 4
Export the candidates to a folder on your computer, then open each one at full size before you reformat anything.
Do not keep shooting to test whether the card still works, and do not let the camera repair or reformat it. Every new exposure is written into free space, and the space the deleted photographs occupy is exactly the space the camera now considers free.
03 / Choose the method
Match the tool to the source
For stable, readable exFAT, NTFS and FAT16/FAT32 or uncompressed IMG, DD, RAW and BIN images.
Unconfirmed exports are marked .UNVERIFIED.
How much comes back depends on how many frames were written after the deletion, and nobody can tell that in advance. File Recovery Hero scans the card and exports files; it does not reconstruct a photograph whose pixel data has already been partly overwritten.
04 / Verify
Check the recovered content, not just its name
Open every rescued photograph in a viewer that decodes the full image rather than the embedded thumbnail. Colours should be correct to the bottom edge, no grey band should cut the frame, and a RAW file should still accept exposure and white-balance changes in your editor.
Keep the source until two verified copies exist. One working preview is not enough.
Sources and technical references
FAQ
Questions about this recovery case
Can photo memory card be recovered in this situation?+
Deleting in camera removes the pointer to a picture, not the picture. The JPEG and RAW data keeps its place on the card until a later frame is written into the same area, which is why the next shutter press matters more than the deletion itself. The result still depends on what remains readable on the source.
What should I avoid before scanning?+
Do not keep shooting to test whether the card still works, and do not let the camera repair or reformat it.
Does scanning write to my memory card?+
Your memory card is only read. Nothing is saved to it.
How do I know whether the result is complete?+
Open every rescued photograph in a viewer that decodes the full image rather than the embedded thumbnail.