How to Recover Deleted Photos on Computer in Windows for Free

How to Recover Deleted Photos on Computer in Windows for Free

Many people want to clean up the storage place on their computer by deleting unnecessary pictures, videos, documents, and other system caches. It is the simplest way to organize memory space on hard drives. But it is also the reason that leads to accidental photo deletion. Chasing after deleted pictures is a devastating task. And the situation becomes more tricky if you use the Shift+Delete keystroke combination to permanently remove files on a computer.

Take it easy. Deleted photos on your computer do not permanently disappear. This post introduces four feasible methods that might be of great help when you need to restore deleted or lost photos from your Windows hard drives. After reading this post, you will know the detailed steps to recover deleted photos on Windows 10 and other popular versions.

Is it Possible to Recover Permanently Deleted Photos on Windows?

Yes, it is. Whether you permanently delete photos by emptying the recycle bin or using the Shift+Delete shortcut key. You can still recover the thought-to-be permanently deleted files on your computer. As long as new data doesn’t overwrite the file cache or replace the stage place, you can restore those deleted or lost files in the following four ways. Read further to learn what they are and how to recover deleted photos on computers in Windows 11, 10, 8, and 7 for free.

How to Recover Deleted Photos on Computer for Free?

This part shares four ways to recover deleted photos from Windows 10 computers and other Windows systems. After reading, you will know how to recover deleted photos on computer for free, with or without software. In addition to restoring photos, these tools can also be used to recover videos, documents, music, archives, and other files. Each method has its pros and cons. You can select one that suits you the most.

1. Recover deleted photos from Recycle Bin

Firstly, Recycle Bin is the first place you should check after accidentally deleting photos. Usually, deleted photos will be moved to the Recycle Bin on Windows computers by default. If you don’t have the habit of emptying Recycle Bin or deleting files by Shift+Delete, you can easily recover deleted photos without software. Here are the detailed steps.

Step 1. Go to Recycle Bin on your PC and find the deleted photos.

Step 2. You can search the lost files by name in the upper right search bar.

Step 3. Right-click the photos you want to recover and select Restore. (If you forget its original storage place, you can drag the images directly to where you want.)

🌕Pros:

• Simple and fast.

🌑Cons:

• It can’t get back permanently deleted files.

2. Recover deleted photos with Free Software WorkinTool💯

WorkinTool Data Recovery is a professional data recovery tool designed for Windows systems. It is available on Windows 11, 10, 8, and 7. Equipped with advanced algorithms and an intuitive interface, WorkinTool can quickly scan and recover lost and deleted files in specified partitions. In addition, users can selectively recover photos, videos, documents, music files, archives, compressed files, and more using this software. See how to recover deleted photos on computer with WorkinTool.

Step 1. Launch this software and select a scenario by which you deleted your files. For instance, Deletion Recovery. We click it, select the drive where your deleted photos were, and then press Scan Now to perform a quick scan.

Step 2. When the result page appears, go to the Deleted Files menu and use the filter option on the top right corner to look for your deleted photos by name, size, type, and date.

Step 3. Tick the checkbox left to the file you want to restore, click Recover, and then set a new path to store the to-be-recovered photos on your computer.

🌕Pros:

• Easy to use without expertise skills.
• Able to recover deleted files by type, size, and date.
• Able to recover lost or deleted photos from Windows hard drives, external drives, memory cards, etc.
• Capable of retrieving formatted, deleted, and corrupted files.
• Recover up to 500MB files for free on Windows 11/10/8/7.

🌑Cons:

• Only compatible with Windows systems.
• No preview feature.

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3. Retrieve deleted pictures with File History

File History is a snapshot backup mechanism for all files stored in the primary folders under their user accounts. It backs up copies of files in Documents, Music, Pictures, Desktop, and offline files of OneDrive. You can also add other folders to this continuous backup application and manually set the periodic time. It replaces Backup and Restore in previous Windows versions and is currently available in Windows 8, 10, and 11. See how to recover deleted photos on computer for free in Windows 8, 10, and 11 with Files History.

Step 1. Locate the folder which previously stored the deleted photos.

Step 2. Right-click on it and select Properties > Previous Versions.

Step 3. Select a version you think to be correct, and click Open > Open in File History to preview the photos.

Step 4. If everything is right, click Restore > Restore to, and then keep a copy of the deleted files.

🌕Pros: 

• Simple and fast.
• Able to restore permanently deleted files.

🌑Cons:

• It can only backup specific folders instead of entire drives.
• Available only when it is turned on before deleting something.

4. Restore lost photos with Command Prompt

Command Prompt, also known as cmd or cmd.exe, is a default command-line interpreter in Windows operating systems. It can execute commands and perform administrative functions for a variety of tasks. For example, finding and recovering deleted files, fixing system faults, removing viruses, etc.

Step 1. Pree Win+R, type cmd, and then press Enter to open Command Prompt.

Step 2. On the Command Prompt window, type chkdsk X: /f, and then hit Enter. Replace the letter X with your drive letter.

Step 3. Type Y, which means yes, and hit Enter to confirm and start examing.

Step 4. Again, type X and press Enter. Replace X with your drive letter.

Step 5. Type attrib -h -r -s /s /d X:\*.* (replace X with your drive letter) and press Enter. Wait for the command line to load and restore your deleted files.

🌕Pros:

• Able to recover deleted, hidden, and virus-infected files.
• Undelete photos from Windows hard drives, external drives, and memory cards.

🌑Cons:

• Expertise and accuracy are required.
• No preview feature.
• It can only recover a batch instead of specified files.

Conclusion

All in all, you have learned how to recover deleted photos on computer for free with four practical ways. We highly recommend the last one—WorkinTool Data Recovery. It enables users to perform a quick and all-around scan on Windows 11/10/8/7. In addition, this professional data recovery tool can quickly restore photos from PC hard drives, external drives, USB devices, memory cards, digital cameras, etc. Try this photo recovery tool, and you will not regret it.