Nowadays, many people use their smartphones to capture important moments and beautiful scenes. Thanks to the ever-evolving smartphone camera technology, it became possible to capture high-definition photos that are as vivid as reality. But accidents can happen, and you might lose some precious photos you treasure a lot. That’s why, in this article, we will show you several easy ways to recover photos on your Android phone, whether deleted or simply hidden. Let’s dive in.
Ways to Find or Recover Hidden Photos in Android Phone
We’re starting with a less radical method because there’s a chance your photos are hidden on your phone or SD card. Just because you can’t find a photo, it doesn’t mean that it’s already been deleted from your device. Though you may have no idea how to find them, they’re lying in wait. All you need to do is find where photos are and unhide them. That’s the best-case scenario.
Unfortunately, like regular files, concealed photos can be deleted from your Android device or the SD card inside. Whatever the case is, it doesn’t change the fact that restoring these photos is a real pain. But don’t lose hope. We’ll do our best to help you recover hidden photos in your Android phone with several distinct techniques.
Recovering Hidden Photos on Android through File Manager
Your Android phone’s default “File Manager” application allows you to hide and unhide every possible file, including photos. Hence, you can follow these steps to get the hidden photos back via the File Manager (or equivalent) app:
- Open the “File Manager” app on your Android device.
- Now, tap on the “three vertical dots” in the upper-right corner of the screen and then on the “Settings” option.
- Now, tap on the “Show hidden files” option to toggle it on.
And voilà! With this, you should be able to see all the hidden files and photos on your phone. If your app doesn’t have this option, you may have to seek an alternative on the Google Play Store.
Find Hidden Images inside Secure Folder
Some Android phone brands, such as Samsung, come with a “Secure Folder” that keeps your private photos, videos, and other files safe. And if this Secure Folder is currently hidden, all the files on your Secure Folder will be concealed, too. Once again, all you must do is unhide the culprit. Use these instructions to make the Secure Folder appear on Samsung devices.
- Open the “Settings” app on your phone.
- Scroll down, find the “Biometrics and security” option, and tap on it.
- After that, toggle on the “Show icons on Apps screen” option.
- Now, enter your password, pin, or any biometric security measure you have set in your phone to confirm your action.
That’s it. You should see all your hidden photos, as long as they are not stored on your SD card. If the photos are obscured and located on your SD card, follow the next method.
Locate Photos Concealed on an SD card for Android Devices
If your SD card has hidden photos or other files, you may struggle to see them on your mobile device. Therefore, we suggest you take it out and insert it into your computer. Afterward, follow the instructions below to restore them:
- On your Windows 11 machine, open the “File Explorer” window.
- Once inside, click the “three horizontal dots” option on the menu bar.
- Next, click on “Options.”
- After the “Folder Options” window opens, click on the “View” tab.
- Under the “Advanced Settings” box, select the “Show hidden files, folders, and drive” option.
- At last, click on the “Hide protected operating system files” option to untick it.
- Next, click on the “Apply” button and then on the “OK” button to save the changes.
All hidden files, including the images on your SD card, will become visible. Go through them to find those you want to keep.
Using Android Data Restoration Software to Rescue Hidden Images
Until now, we showed the recovery procedure for concealed photos, so long they were still present on the device. But what if the hidden photos from your device have been wiped? In this case, you need to use professional third-party data recovery software for Android to restore them. Before you begin, you need to download compatible software from a reputable company and install it, preferably on your computer. Applications are limited by the operating system and require rooting for best results.
Remember, you should always choose software from a well-known company that has plenty of positive customer reviews. Now, since the user interface and restoration process of most data recovery applications are almost identical, you won’t have problems using our general set of steps below. With that said, here’s how recovering removed photos hidden on your Android smart device works:
- First, open the Android data recovery application on your Windows computer.
- Some applications might ask you if you’re looking for Android or iOS data recovery. Click on the “Android Data Recovery” option to continue. If there’s no such option, skip to the next step.
- Now, connect your Android device to your computer using a USB cable.
- Once the application recognizes your phone, select the type of files you want to retrieve. In our case, we will select “Photos” and deselect all the other options.
- After that, click on the “Scan/Next” to start the scanning process. After the scan is complete, the application will show the photos that are available for recovery.
- Next, select the photos you would like to restore and click on the “Recover” or “Restore” button. Your photos will be downloaded on your Windows device, and you can transfer them to your phone at any moment.
Methods to Recover Deleted Photos on Android
We sorted out the issue of photos being obscured from view. After you ensured they are truly gone, it’s time to up the intensity of the recovery process. Here are several avenues to explore when it comes to restoring Android photos deleted from your smartphone or tablet:
Employing Google Photos for Retrieval
Google Photos is a photo storage and sharing app from Google that is preinstalled on the majority of Android smart devices. It syncs with your phone’s gallery and your Google account to automatically backup all the photo files you add and open. Thanks to this automatic backup feature, you can employ it to retrieve all deleted photos from your Android smart device. Here’s how that works:
- Open the “Google Photos” app on your Android smartphone.
- Find photos you deleted locally, as they will still appear, so long you’re connected to the Internet and logged in. Select images erased from your phone’s gallery.
- Next, tap on the “three vertical dots” menu and then the “Save to device” option to download image files back to your gallery.
Note. This method of Android photo recovery will only work if the Google Photos app is synced with your gallery. Also, the removed photo must have been already backed up to your Google account via the Google Photos app. If that process did not occur yet, this method won’t work in your case.
Recover Your Deleted Photos on Android Using Google Drive
Just like Google Photos, Google Drive also comes preinstalled in most devices with the Android 11 operating system and many older ones. Therefore, if you have synced it with your phone for automatic backups, you can get your photos back from Google Drive. Here’s how you can do it:
- Open the “Google Drive” app on your Android device.
- Search for the photos you would like to restore.
- Once you find the photo you were looking for, tap the “three vertical dots” option and then “Download” to restore the file to your device.
Using Microsoft OneDrive to Get Photos Back
Microsoft’s online cloud storage service, OneDrive, automatically stores your phone’s data in its cloud and deletes the backed-up media files, including photos from your phone, to free up internal storage. Thankfully, every photo in the cloud can be downloaded to any device, including your Android phone. This is what to do:
- First, open the “OneDrive” app on your Android phone.
- Next, select “Photos” from the menu located at the bottom of the OneDrive user interface.
- Now, select the photos that you would like to download back to your phone.
- After that, tap on the “More” option and then tap on “Save” to download the photo to your phone’s gallery.
Utilize a Professional Third-party Data Retrieval Software
If none of the methods worked so far, it’s time to switch to professional software for Android data restoration. We already pointed out what qualities to look for, and demonstrated the procedure on a Windows computer. Thus, it’s time we cover the procedure of restoring removed Android photos using a Mac machine:
- First, connect your Android device to the Mac using a USB cable.
- Next, launch the software and allow “USB Debugging” so your Mac and the application can get access to your Android smartphone.
- After that, click on the “Recover” button right next to your Android device in the application’s UI.
- Once the scan is complete, it will show you a list of recoverable files, including your deleted photos. Select the photos that you want to recover and click on the “Restore” or “Recover” button.
With this, the photos you have selected will be downloaded on your Mac machine. You may transfer them to your Android device whenever you wish.