Production workflow · Finder or Explorer transfer workflow
Finder or Explorer transfer: only a proxy or preview remains
What can I do when only proxy media remains in Finder or Explorer transfer?
Short answer
Not the original: a thumbnail, Quick Look preview or reduced copy shown in Finder or Explorer holds far less image data than the camera file. Keep it as a reference for name and date, search every drive for the full-size file, and scan the original card read-only if the camera file was deleted.
The situation
Finder or Explorer transfer can play a smaller helper file, while the high-quality original is unavailable.
What Finder and Explorer display in a gallery view is a cached thumbnail, generated once and kept in a database on the system disk. It can survive the file it depicts, so a grid of visible images is not proof that the camera files are still present anywhere.
01 / Diagnose
Work out what actually disappeared
Three kinds of small stand-ins get confused with originals: the thumbnail database, a Quick Look preview rendered on demand, and a reduced copy made for sharing by email or messaging. Each is a few hundred kilobytes where a raw file is tens of megabytes, and a phone-shared version has usually lost both resolution and most metadata.
Proxy and preview locations are separate from camera originals and contain less information. For Finder or Explorer transfer, this matters because Finder or Explorer transfer can keep references or helper media without containing a complete independent original
Check the last known path, trash and backups without writing to the original device.
02 / Protect the source
Preserve the best recovery chance
- 1
Move the reduced copies you still have into a folder of their own on a working drive, so nothing overwrites them while you search.
- 2
Read the filename, pixel dimensions and creation date from each small copy and build a list of the originals that are actually missing.
- 3
Search all connected drives and the recording card for those filenames, sorting results by size so the full-resolution version stands out.
- 4
If only small copies exist everywhere, scan the card read-only and export candidates to another drive before deleting any of the reduced files.
Do not upscale a reduced copy and treat it as a replacement, and do not delete the small versions once the originals turn up missing. Enlarging adds no image data that was thrown away during compression, and the small copies remain the only reference for what should be recovered.
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.
Thumbnail databases sit deep inside the macOS or Windows user library, and on an APFS startup disk File Recovery Hero cannot read them at all; it scans exFAT, NTFS and FAT16/FAT32 volumes read-only. No scan restores resolution that compression removed.
04 / Verify
Check the recovered content, not just its name
A recovered file is the original when its pixel dimensions match the camera specification rather than the reduced copy, the size is in megabytes rather than kilobytes, and the metadata still names lens, shutter and aperture. Open it at full zoom and check fine detail.
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 Finder or Explorer transfer workflow be recovered in this situation?+
What Finder and Explorer display in a gallery view is a cached thumbnail, generated once and kept in a database on the system disk. It can survive the file it depicts, so a grid of visible images is not proof that the camera files are still present anywhere. The result still depends on what remains readable on the source.
What should I avoid before scanning?+
Do not upscale a reduced copy and treat it as a replacement, and do not delete the small versions once the originals turn up missing.
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?+
A recovered file is the original when its pixel dimensions match the camera specification rather than the reduced copy, the size is in megabytes rather than kilobytes, and the metadata still names lens, shutter and aperture.