Okay all you techy mamas out there, I need your help! I accidentally clicked on a folder yesterday intending to delete the cover photo and accidentally deleted over two years of photos/videos. :( I'm so broken up about it.
Anyway, I called Verizon and they said that if I didn't back them up on Cloud or have them on my Google+ account, then they are gone. I find that hard to believe. With a computer they are there for a while. In any case, if you Google it, there are a bunch of companies that have a software that you can download to your computer, connect your phone and supposedly retrieve the photos. This makes me real nervous, like they could be a scam. And some of the sites have noticeable poor English or misspellings, which is usually a sign that it is a scam.
So... my question is have you found a way to retrieve your photos? Have you ever used one of these sites? Are they safe?
I plan to call Best Buy in a little while but they're not open yet.
Thanks for any help you can offer!
ETA: I have a Smart phone but it was not linked to Google+ or FB.
Well that sucks.
However, if you're like me, you've put a ton of your pics on Facebook because you like to share them. So log on and see what you shared. I'll bet a lot of them are on there.
Did you know that Facebook has a photo album you can put all your pics in that isn't viewable by anyone except you? If you don't want to pay for cloud backup, it's a smart way to back up your stuff...
If yours is a droid you should already be synced to google+ but then you may have deactivated it. Oh, wait, you didn't say you had a smart phone.
If you don't have a smart phone they are gone, only smart phones are small computers.
So if you have a smart phone you should have been getting very annoying notices that your pictures have been backed up every time you take one. If you have FB they were probably synced to that as well.
If you have a dumb phone your pictures are gone.
You absolutely can retrieve deleted photos directly off the physical memory of your phone. If you have a mico SD card in your phone and it's where the photos had been stores, that's even easier. Some files may be corrupted but many should be intact.
There are free programs as well as paid personal use programs you can use. Don't pay a sketchy looking service.
The key is to not have overwritten after you deleted. Meaning, if you've already taken new photos, you'll have been destroying the residual data of your old photos. Don't use your phone for anything but calls until you've tried the retrieval.
I lost some but it was not a big deal because every couple ofweeks I order prints from Photoaffections.com. 85 free a month then .09 each print. If I lose pictures in phone for some reason, I am covered. Great, easy site. Try it.
When you delete something off of a disc, it doesn't remove the data, it just removes the pointer to the directory. You can find a reputable data-recovery facility if you want your pictures back, but it will cost quite a bit of money.
Alternatively, run something like DiskDigger if your phone is rooted (it would have to be an Android phone). If you know a tech savvy person (geek) they might be able to help with that.
If you have a memory card in your phone and your photos where on said memory card then there maybe hope. I did tthat once and my boyfriend helped get then back. On yourc computer Google memory card recovery software and down load card recovery. Once it's finished put your memory card that's in a usb adapter and follow instructions make sure you select to recover ALL forms of media. It will take a couple hours probably but it should bring back most of the files.
If you didn't back them up, they are gone.
If you texted or emailed them to anyone, and you haven't deleted your outboxes, you can retrieve the ones you sent.
The only thing those software vendors are going to find is your wallet. They prey on distraught people.
From now on sync your photos. Period.
Go to your settings when you're in your photos and click on the option to sync them to BOTH FB and Goggle+ whenever a WiFi signal is present. This way you don't have to think about it.
SYNCED PHOTOS ARE ALWAYS PRIVATE
No one can assess them except you when you're signed in.
I do this all the time now and I can right click on them on FB or on Google and download them onto my harddrive. So technically my photos are stored in 3 different places.
Is your phone an iPhone? If so, iPhone does periodic auto backups to iCloud. You could just do a restore on the phone and get back everything you had up until that last restore date.
If not, you're stuck. Your phone has built in memory, but not a hard drive that writes to a separate location/disk on the phone. So you can save to that memory, but if you delete, it's gone.
Unless they are in the cloud they are gone, I'm sure.
What about whatever you shared on Facebook, sent by email or uploaded to other sites? Go to those sites and retrieve them, save them and get them printed so you have PHYSICAL copies as well.
(Back in the days before digital I had both physical copies and kept the negatives, in case anything happened to the prints.)
Photos are precious, you wouldn't let your wallet overflow with cash, don't let your phone overflow with those precious irreplaceable memories which can be lost at the touch of a button!!!
