How to Recover Deleted Photos from Years Ago

Has it ever happened to you that you deleted a picture a few years ago and felt the need to recover old photos? Although, there is no sure way to recover lost or deleted photos. However, with the help of recovery tools like Photos Recovery, photos, videos, and audio files that were permanently deleted years ago, can be restored.

Can you Recover Photo Deleted Years Ago?

You can restore old data if you keep a backup of your pictures. However, suppose you don’t have a backup. In that case, you can use an old photo recovery tool like Photos Recovery to retrieve photos, video, and audio deleted a year ago unless the data is not overwritten.

Now that you have got the answer, what are you waiting for? Let us see how to recover old deleted photos.

The solutions explained in this article will not only help recover deleted images but will also answer the following questions:

1. How do I recover deleted files from a long time ago?
2. How can I restore photos deleted 2 or 3 years ago?
3. How do you retrieve permanently deleted photos?

When you Can not Recover Deleted Photos?

There are some times when you cannot recover deleted photos because they are not available in backup or the recovery software cannot identify them anymore. This happens due to certain reasons.

Once new files reuse the same storage space where the photos were stored, the original data is replaced. At this stage, recovery is no longer possible.

If files were deleted using secure erase, shredding tools, or multi-pass wiping methods, the data is intentionally destroyed beyond reconstruction.

Burnt chips, snapped memory cards, or heavily water-damaged drives can make data extraction impossible, even for professional labs.

When both the photo data and its file references are corrupted beyond repair, recovery software has nothing left to rebuild.

On modern SSDs, TRIM actively clears deleted data blocks, making recovery virtually impossible after the command is executed.

Misconfigured settings leading to removal of files from cloud storage may result in permanent deletion of data beyond recovery.

What Are The Common Causes of Permanently Deleted Photos?

Here are the most common causes of permanently deleted photos:

Deleted By Accident

The major cause of deleted photos is accidental deletion. This happens when users delete the files by mistake or select all and delete all the photos in a folder.

Empty Recycle Bin

Most of us know that the files deleted from the PC land up in the Recycle Bin. If you have deleted some photos temporarily while sort your images, you can always get them back by restoring from the Recycle Bin. However, if someone empties the Bin, then the photos are permanently deleted.

Reset To Factory Settings

In some errors, users have to reset their devices back to the original factory settings. If the memory card was not removed during  the reset, or the device contains unremovable memory, then resetting can erase all the contents of the storage device.

Formatting storage devices

If you have accidentally formatted your storage device, then this will lead to permanently deleted files that can be recovered with the help of a specialized software.

Corrupted Devices

Storage devices can be affected by file system errors, bad sectors, corrupted files, etc due to sudden power loss or malware leading to permanently deleted files.

Virus or malware attacks

Malicious software can delete, encrypt, or damage photos targeting media files in general.

Cloud sync errors

If the files are being uploaded to a cloud storage, then sync conflicts and misconfigured cloud settings can result in deletion of photos across all devices and the main server itself.

Physical damage

One of the main reasons for losing photos and other files is the physical damage that may destroy the storage media. This can happen due to exposure to water, electrical surges, etc resulting in permanent damage to the storage device and the files contained within.

Overwriting data

If a file has recently been deleted , then there are greater chances of recovering it back. However, with time, new files get overwritten on the older deleted files, leading to permanent deletion of files like images and media.

Untrusted third-party cleaning apps

There are certain unreliable third-party optimization tools that delete the contents permanently to gain space making it next to impossible to recover photos and other media files.

How To Recover Permanently Deleted Photos?

Below we enlist the best methods to restore permanently deleted photos.

Method 1: Recover Deleted Photos From Recycle Bin

One of the easiest ways to restore deleted photos, audio, video, documents, and other files are from the Recycle Bin. This is because when a file is deleted, it goes to the Recycle Bin. So, before going into technicalities, you should check the Recycle Bin for deleted images.

To use this method, the following requirements must be met:

1. The file size must be smaller than the Recycle Bin can keep. This is because Recycle Bin cannot keep files larger than the size it is set to keep.
2. Never enable the option to delete files without shifting them to the Recycle Bin.
3. Avoid emptying the Recycle Bin without cross-checking.

If the above conditions are true, restoring long-term deleted pictures is impossible. However, if the above mentioned requirements are fulfilled, follow these steps to recover deleted photos.

Step 1. On your desktop, look for the Recycle Bin icon. Double-click to open it.
Step 2. Search for images you want to restore.
Step 3. Select them  > right-click > Restore.

Read Also:- How to Recover Deleted PSD Files

This will restore selected pictures to the original location. 

Method 2: Use Photos Recovery to Retrieve Years Ago Deleted Pictures

Unfortunately, if you don’t have a backup & the Recycle Bin is also empty, don’t get disheartened. Before you plan on giving up, try using Photos Recovery. The tool helps recover videos and music files. This recovery tool is simple; anyone from a beginner to an advanced user can use it.

Why use Photos Recovery?

You don’t need a backup of your pictures to use the Photos Recovery tool. The image recovery program works without a backup and lets you restore all media files. Moreover, you can retrieve as many pictures as possible from your PC by performing a Deep Scan.

Here’s how to use Photos Recovery to restore deleted photos.

Step 1. Download and Install Photos Recovery

Double-click the prsetup_systweak-default.exe file > click Yes and follow the on-screen instructions to install the image recovery tool for your PC.

Step 2. Scan the Drive for the Years Ago Deleted Pictures

Once installed, launch Photos Recovery. You will now see a welcome screen divided into two tabs – Hard Drive & Removable Drive.

To scan Hard Drive, select the Hard Drive tab > select the driver to scan.

Step 3. Select the Scan Type

After selecting the drive to scan, you need to select the scan type. Photos Recovery offers Quick Scan and Deep Scan options. Since we are looking for pictures deleted years ago, we suggest using Deep Scan.

Step 4. Wait for the Scan to Finish

Once the drive to scan is selected, hit the Start Scan button to start the process and wait for the program to find the recoverable photos. You can minimize Photos Recovery and let the scan run in the background.

Step 5. Recover Permanently Deleted Images

Find your pictures deleted years ago in the scan results, select them, and click “Recover” to restore your pictures to your device.

Step 6. Select the location to Recover.

Select the location where you would want to restore permanently deleted pictures. Remember not to pick the same location you are scanning to save the images. This reduces the chances of photograph recovery.

Step 7. Summary

Once the process is done, you will get a summary of the files recovered. This is how you can get old picutres back.

Must Read:- How to Recover Deleted DNG Files

Method 3: Recover Photos via Backups

If you have a backup of your images, music, and videos, you can restore them all on your device. You may use an internal backup tool on Windows to restore data or third-party software such as Photos Recovery.

Tips to Prevent Long Time Pictures Deletion

Here are practical tips to prevent long-time deletion of photos and other files.

Follow the 3-2-1 backup rule

Experts have suggested maintaining 3 copies of the photos on different storage devices and one cloud storage. This will help to restore the data even if more than one device crashes.

Enable automatic cloud backup

Most cloud backup services like iCloud, Google Photos, OneDrive, Right Backup, allow auto-sync feature that automatically backs up the data when placed in a certain folder.

Copy To External Storage

Make a schedule to copy the photos from your devices to an external HDD regularly so that your files are never lost.

Don’t empty Recycle Bin immediately

When you delete photos or any other files, they land up in the recycle bin. Do not rush off to delete them immediately by emptying the bin. Instead wait for a couple of days and review the bin before permanently deleting them.

Protect devices from malware

Make sure you use an antivirus and firewall to prevent any unauthorized malware attacks.

The Bottom Line – How to recover old photos

Primarily, recovering old deleted photos may seem impossible. However, should you have an image recovery software program such as Photos Recovery, you could recover many years old photos, videos, and audio information. You can also try out the Recycle Bin to find deleted files. Using these steps, we hope you can restore all the images you’ve lost over the years.

Read This:- How to Recover Photos After a Data Loss

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