Best Free Photo Recovery Software for Windows

Nothing brings pain and anxiety to the computer user more than realizing that one’s photo files have been deleted inadvertently. Discovering that photos are no longer where they were expected may cause panic and rightly so. Memories could be gone forever. Once in a lifetime events are lost; trips become only memories; candid photos destroyed. If you are professional, it is not just memories that disappear, it is a financial asset loss.
Free Download
Upgrade to PRO
Hold on! That is not necessarily true. Your photos may be “deleted” in that you can no longer locate them on your drive; however, they are not necessarily completely destroyed. Photo recovery is possible if you have the right tools. Disk Drill can be that tool. Disk Drill is an efficient way to recover deleted photos, whether they are recently erased or long gone.

The Keys to Successful Recovery

One of the keys to picture recovery is understanding that, although you cannot locate the photos in their regular location, they are not destroyed. In a general case, when you delete photos, they are not being removed from the disk just yet. Shredding photos is not an efficient use of system’s resources, unless the disk drive is full. Therefore, all that usually occurs during the initial deletion is special marking of the disk space where the deleted items were stored. Therefore, the system has just made disk space available for overwriting. The overwrite itself has not occurred. This is where photo recovery tools can get into your drive and find your photos. If the image recovery software is built with a strong understanding of how operating systems work and how files are managed within those systems, recovery is even more possible.

How to recover deleted photos?


To do it properly, an effective application should possess several different recovery methods. Disk Drill does. The developers of the image recovery software know that recovering photos may take more than a single attempt. Disk Drill uses a comprehensive approach to search for the most recently deleted files. Then, it can also search for long deleted files and recover deleted photos that were long thought to be lost forever. The application has algorithms that will search through the drives with multiple approaches to find old or recently lost photos. Furthermore, Disk Drill can recover deleted photos in a variety of different formats, from the most basic (like JPG, PNG, TIFF) to the professional ones (like RAW, DNG, R3D, etc.). You can try the free photo recovery software for up to 100MB.
  • 1Download Disk Drill
  • 2Install it
  • 3Run Disk Drill for Windows

Using the Right Photo Recovery Tool

The first thing to do when you realize that you have lost your photos is to stop what you are doing and begin the scan for lost data as soon as possible. The more that you use the computer, the better the chances that your photos will be overwritten. Picture recovery should commence as soon as possible to ensure that you can recover as much as possible.

After you have stopped using your system you need to initiate a photo recovery software that will start comprehensive photo recovery. Download Disk Drill and begin your search immediately before you resume using the storage device.

Recovery can take place no matter where the recoverable files are located. Disk Drill allows you to recover files from different computer and storage devices. You can recover your files on the same device or to external drives, which is recommended.
How to Recover Deleted Files
Disk Drill’s Quick Scan will search recently deleted photos and similar files. Because much of the file information is intact, the picture recovery will return the file names and the paths. Finding these recently lost files can quickly relieve the anxiety of lost photos that you were sure you had saved. Recover Deleted Photos

Reconstruct Deleted Pictures

Disk Drill’s Deep Scan process will find photos by their binary pieces on the hard drive. It will do a search through free space on your computer and reconstruct files that existed before. Our picture recovery app will analyze the files and attempt to rebuild them even if they were deleted long ago, giving you a better chance of a successful recovery. Once the scan is over, the recoverable items will be available for review. You can then select the photos that you want to save.
USB flash drive recovery hints and tips
With Disk Drill you are in full control over the scanning process. To assist in the review of found items, you can sort and filter by photo file types as well as file sizes. As you review the files, you can select the ones that you wish to save. Recover Deleted Photos

Prevent data loss in future

Recovering lost files may give you relief, but would it not be better to avoid the frustration altogether? Disk Drill can make this possible too. Our app will not only help you search for lost photos, it will also help in preventing their loss. With its Recovery Vault option, you can ensure that photos are protected from unintentional deletions.

Frequently Asked Questions

Updated on by Disk Drill Team

To recover permanently deleted photos on Windows 10 follow these steps:

  1. Download and install Disk Drill.
  2. If the deleted photos were on an external device, connect it to your computer.
  3. Launch the app and select the disk for recovery.
  4. Click Search for lost data.
  5. Preview the recoverable images.
  6. Select the photos for recovery and click Recover all to restore them.

Disk Drill for Windows offers you a way of recovering deleted photos for free. When you download the free version of Disk Drill you can restore up to 500 MB of deleted data and photos without spending a cent. While you are enjoying the free data recovery you can also investigate the advanced data protection features included with the software.

Yes, it is. Using quality data recovery software like Disk Drill enables you to recover images in a wide variety of formats, including RAW files. Using the deep scanning capabilities built into the application it can reconstruct and recover files from your digital camera. If the storage media can be recognized by Windows, Disk Drill can recover its deleted images.

To recover deleted photos from an SD card perform these steps:

  1. Connect the SD card to your computer.
  2. Start Disk Drill and select the SD card from the list of disks.
  3. Click Search for lost data to initiate the scanning process. 
  4. Preview the photos that can be recovered and make your selections. 
  5. Click Recover to perform the photo recovery.

Without data recovery software your options are limited when attempting to recover permanently deleted pictures. If they are not in the device’s recently deleted files folder your only real option is to recover from a backup. Backups may not be available of the last photos as they may have been lost before you had a chance to back them up.

Disk Drill for Windows is the best photo recovery app for the Windows OS. It provides the user with a simple and powerful method of recovering lost and deleted files from any disk-based storage device. Disk Drill employs advanced scanning technology that recovers files in over 400 different formats. Try it and restore 500 MB of data for free.

Use this procedure to restore lost pictures from a USB flash drive:

  1. Attach the USB flash drive to your machine.
  2. Launch Disk Drill and select the drive from the displayed disk list.
  3. Click Search for lost data to scan for deleted pictures.
  4. Preview recoverable data and choose the picture you want to retrieve.
  5. Click Recover to perform the photo recovery.

Try Deep Scan

Disk Drill image recovery software is a robust application that will assist you in recovering from a potential disaster. With its Quick and Deep Scan capabilities, it will search the places that deleted files are discarded to (technically speaking). Because of its algorithms, the user has one of the most advanced photo recovery tools available, whether you are a professional or just someone who enjoys taking candid photos of friends.
Learn more about Deep Scan

Recover Deleted Photos

Disk Drill 4
Recover Data from Internal and External Drives
Free Download
Upgrade to PRO
Wondering how to recover deleted photos on Mac OS X? Check out Disk Drill for macOS

More how-to's...

Ready to recover deleted file?
  • 10+ Million
    TOTAL DOWNLOADS
  • 500,000+
    PRO CLIENTS
  • BUSINESS & HOME USERS
    in 150+ countries

Disk Drill testimonials by other users

  • Anonymous
    Anonymous
    Just wanted to leave an excellent review!!! I accidentally deleted all of my husband's med school files from his external hard drive and luckily Disk Drill was able to retrieve all of them! SOOOOO SATISFIED!
  • intowindows.com
    intowindows.com
    «All-in-all, I am pretty much impressed with Disk Drill software. The UI is elegant, and moreover, this data recovery software really works.» by Admin
Used by world famous companies