How to Recover Photos From Memory Card on Android Phone

Many Android phones now have more storage space than they used to, and you don’t have to worry about running out of storage. But if you’re the one who likes to take photos, record videos, or save high-quality pictures, then your phone’s storage space may run low.

Thankfully, there are still quite a few phones that retain the capability to insert and read SD cards. Therefore, for you who are short of storage on your phone, using an SD card is a great choice to solve this problem. Also, you needn’t format an SD card when you want to use it on your Android phone.

Why Android Phone Memory Card Photos Lost

However, photos can disappear from an Android SD card for several reasons:

• Accidental deletion: You may unintentionally delete your photos while browsing through the gallery or organizing them.
• Formatting operations: Whether intentionally or accidentally formatting the memory card will lead to data loss, including all the photos stored on it.
• Malware attack: Android is more vulnerable to malware attacks than iOS.  iOS does not allow you to install software freely before jailbreaking, while Android has the option to turn off system scanning or change other settings to install third-party software.
• Software glitches: If you give software permission to modify your phone’s files, your photos may get corrupted or lost due to software glitches or crashes with the Android OS or other apps.
• Physical damage: Damage to the memory card or to the Android phone itself may result in data loss.
• File system conversion: Improperly changing the file system format of your SD card can cause stored photos to be lost.

Can You Recover Deleted Photos from an SD Card

Deleted photos from an SD card may be recoverable, especially if you stop using the card immediately and the deleted data has not been overwritten by new files.

The recovery method depends on what happened:

How to Recover Photos From Memory Card on Android Phone

Here are multiple methods to recover photos from memory card on Android phone, and you can try them to see if they work for you.

Restore Photos From the Gallery or Albums

How to recover data from SD card in mobile without computer? For most Android systems, deleting images from the system album does not mean deleting them permanently. Deleted images will remain for 30 days in the Trash box (different systems may have different remaining times), and this function allows you to restore deleted photos before your photos are completely removed from your Android phone.

Here we take Hyper OS as an example.

Step 1: Open the system Gallery/Album (different OS may name their system albums differently), and go to Albums. Scroll down to find a Trash box icon and tap it. All photos deleted in the past 30 days will be saved here.

When you go into Deleted items, marked words will show up and tell you how long deleted images can be kept. Be careful, don’t hit the trash box in the top right corner. Once you hit this button, it will delete all kept images in Deleted items completely.

Step 2: Tap and hold any images on this page, and the album will go into selection mode. You can select multiple items under this mode. Choose the images you want and hit the Restore button to recover your photos. In addition, in selection mode, you can use the functional button in the top right corner to restore all the deleted items.

This method can be used to recover deleted photos from SD card on Android phone for free. If you want to recover photos that have been deleted over 30 days, go to the other methods.

Recover Photos From Cloud Services

Mobile phone manufacturers and mobile service providers offer you their cloud services. Some cloud services have synchronization turned on by default, while others require you to confirm it manually. If you have the habit of storing your files in the cloud, then when your files are lost, you can download them from the cloud.

Here is how to download photos from Google Photos.

1. Open the Google Photos app on your phone.
2. Select a photo or video.
3. Tap the three dots to open More and then select Download.

Perform Photo Recovery on Your Computer With MiniTool Power Data Recovery

If the deleted photos are no longer available in Gallery, Trash, or a backup, you can scan the SD card with data recovery software. This method is useful when photos were accidentally deleted, the card was formatted, or files became inaccessible because of file-system problems.

MiniTool Power Data Recovery is a Windows-based data recovery tool that supports SD cards and can scan for deleted and lost photos and other types of data.

You can download and install MiniTool Power Data Recovery Free to get 1 GB of recovery capacity at no charge. After installing this free file recovery software, follow the steps below to recover photos from SD card free.

MiniTool Power Data Recovery FreeClick to Download100%Clean & Safe

Step 1: Insert the memory card with the photos saved previously into a card reader and connect it to your computer. Then launch MniTool Power Data Recovery. Under Logical Drives, choose the memory card partition you want to scan and click the Scan button. Or you can go to the Devices tab to scan your memory card.

Step 2: After the scanning is done, go to the Type tab and you can see the pictures are collated according to their types.

Or, you can click Filter and tick Picture only in By File Type to find your photos more quickly.

Step 3: Hit Save if you have confirmed and selected all the photos you want to recover, and then you need to select a location to save these photos.

If you run out of 1 GB of free photo recovery, you’ll need to upgrade to an advanced edition for unlimited restores.

Recover Memory Card Photos Using MiniTool Photo Recovery

If you need a dedicated tool to recover deleted or lost photos from an SD card, you can try MiniTool Photo Recovery. It is designed to recover photos, videos, and audio files from digital cameras, memory cards, USB drives, and other storage devices.

This tool allows you to recover 200 MB of photos for free.

MiniTool Windows Photo RecoveryClick to Download100%Clean & Safe

Here is a brief guide to recovering photos from an SD card with MiniTool Photo Recovery:

1. Launch MiniTool Photo Recovery and click Start to continue.
2. Click Setting and choose Graphics & Picture only.
3. Choose the SD card from the list of available drives and click Scan.
4. After the scan finishes, browse the scan results and select the photos you want to recover. Then save them to a different storage location.

Tips to Protect Photos in Android Memory Card From Being Lost

Now that you know how to recover photos from memory card on Android phone, it’s time to learn some tips to prevent your photos from being lost.

• Use services like Google Photos, Dropbox, or OneDrive to automatically back up your photos. These services offer you a certain amount of free storage space and ensure your photos are safe even if you lose your phone or memory card. For example, Google Photos provides up to 15 GB of free storage.
• Regularly transfer your photos to your computer or an external hard drive for backup. Alternatively, you can make multiple copies of the data on your Android phone or SD card to different locations.
• Avoid physical damage to your memory card by handling it carefully. Do not bend, drop, or expose it to extreme temperatures or moisture.
• Encrypt your pictures or albums so that some threats can’t easily delete your photos.
• When you lose pictures from an SD card, stop saving data to it and immediately use a professional and reliable photo recovery tool, such as MiniTool Power Data Recovery, to rescue the photos. Then, check the health of the SD card or replace it with a new one.

Final Words

When photos stored in the SD card of your Android phone are lost, you can use the recovery function of the phone album, cloud services, or data recovery software to solve the problem.

If you have any questions while using MiniTool software, please contact the tech support team at [email protected].

Recover Photos From Memory Card on Android Phone FAQ