Photos & RAW · exFAT media card
PNG still images: recover after deletion
How can I recover deleted PNG stills after deletion?
Short answer
Yes, often, and PNG hits are easy to verify: every chunk carries a length and a CRC checksum, so a damaged or incomplete file shows up clearly. Keep the card unused, scan it read-only for PNG, export to another drive and compare each image with the expected dimensions of the producing device.
The situation
deleted PNG stills no longer appears in its recording folder even though the storage device is still detected.
Deleting a still on a memory card removes the entry that points at the file, not the pixels. Windows keeps no recycle bin for removable media, so the stills vanish from the listing at once while their blocks stay in place until the next recording claims them.
01 / Diagnose
Work out what actually disappeared
When the camera or the operating system deletes a PNG, the exFAT directory entry is released and the clusters are marked as free. The image data stays where it was written until new files need that space. PNG helps here, because the signature, the IHDR chunk and the closing IEND make a deleted still recognisable without its name.
Deletion can release a directory reference before later writes reuse every block that belonged to the file. For PNG still images, this matters because PNG uses chunk lengths and CRCs that allow a stricter structural check than a filename alone.
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 recording and eject the card, since each new still or clip the device writes can land on the clusters holding the deleted files.
- 2
Note how many stills you lost, their pixel dimensions and the device that produced them, so you can tell complete hits from fragments later on.
- 3
Read the card through a card reader with a scan that only reads and never writes, and let it search the whole medium for the PNG signature.
- 4
Export every hit to an internal drive or a second disk, open each file and sort the intact stills away from the truncated ones.
Do not run a repair or check-disk command against the only copy of the card, and do not save recovered files back onto it. Both actions write to the same exFAT volume and can cover the deleted PNG blocks before anything has been read out.
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.
Only the card as a whole can be read here; a still whose blocks were already taken by later recordings cannot be assembled from the remainder. File Recovery Hero scans exFAT read-only and needs a licence for export, and it does not repair chunks that are missing.
04 / Verify
Check the recovered content, not just its name
A good result opens at the expected pixel dimensions and shows no cut-off rows or colour banding at the bottom. Because every PNG chunk carries a length and a CRC checksum, a viewer or checksum tool flags a file whose data was partly reused instead of silently showing half a picture.
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 exFAT media card be recovered in this situation?+
Deleting a still on a memory card removes the entry that points at the file, not the pixels. Windows keeps no recycle bin for removable media, so the stills vanish from the listing at once while their blocks stay in place until the next recording claims them. The result still depends on what remains readable on the source.
What should I avoid before scanning?+
Do not run a repair or check-disk command against the only copy of the card, and do not save recovered files back onto 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?+
A good result opens at the expected pixel dimensions and shows no cut-off rows or colour banding at the bottom.