Cameras · Sony exFAT photo card
Recover deleted Sony HEIF-family photos
How can I recover deleted Sony HEIF or HIF images?
Short answer
First stop using the card, then scan it read-only for the HEIF family, choosing HIF if that is the extension your Sony wrote. These images sit in ISO-BMFF containers, so brand, metadata and image items must all fit together. Export to another drive and open each file at full resolution; a thumbnail alone proves nothing.
The situation
HEIF-family stills were deleted before they were copied.
Deleting on the camera or in a card reader removes the entry, not the picture. Sony stores these stills as HIF files in an ISO-BMFF container, and that container stays in the card's data area until a later exposure claims the space it occupies.
01 / Diagnose
Work out what actually disappeared
A HEIF-family still is not one linear block the way a JPEG is. The container carries a brand declaration, a metadata section and one or more image items that reference each other by offset, so a scan has to bring the whole structure back rather than merely find a header. Deletion leaves all of that intact; only the directory entry went away and the clusters were marked free.
The image containers use ISO-BMFF structures that need coherent brands, metadata, and image items.
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 shooting at once and eject the card, because a single new exposure can be written straight across the clusters holding a deleted still.
- 2
Check which extension the body actually wrote, usually HIF on Sony, and set the scan to the HEIF family instead of JPEG.
- 3
Run the scan read-only from a card reader so that not even a thumbnail cache is written back to the card.
- 4
Export the results to another drive and open every file in an application that decodes HEIF at full size.
Do not let the camera or a phone app repair the card, and put nothing new on it, not even a test frame. Both write into free space. Converting recovered files to JPEG before you have inspected them is equally unhelpful: it hides whether the original container came back complete.
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.
Everything here depends on the card reading reliably and the stills not having been overwritten. File Recovery Hero scans exFAT, NTFS and FAT16/FAT32 media read-only, with export unlocked by a one-off 50 EUR licence; it repairs no incomplete HEIF container and reads neither APFS nor HFS+ volumes.
04 / Verify
Check the recovered content, not just its name
A usable result opens at the pixel dimensions your Sony records and shows the entire frame rather than a small preview pulled from the metadata. It should also still carry capture date and camera settings; a visible picture with no metadata usually means the container was reassembled from a fragment.
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 Sony exFAT photo card be recovered in this situation?+
Deleting on the camera or in a card reader removes the entry, not the picture. Sony stores these stills as HIF files in an ISO-BMFF container, and that container stays in the card's data area until a later exposure claims the space it occupies. The result still depends on what remains readable on the source.
What should I avoid before scanning?+
Do not let the camera or a phone app repair the card, and put nothing new on it, not even a test frame.
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 usable result opens at the pixel dimensions your Sony records and shows the entire frame rather than a small preview pulled from the metadata.