How to Restore Missing Pictures from a SD Card

Sometimes, while transferring your files from an SD card to a computer, you may accidentally end up deleting them. Imagine going great lengths to get those perfect wedding photos or vacation memories only to have them deleted in this manner. The loss would be terrible. 

Thankfully, today there are different ways you can restore deleted files from a SD card. To apply these ways of SD card data recovery, you must first understand the cause of file deletion from a microSD card.

Causes of losing photos and videos from a SD card

Every SD card has a defined lifetime. How long an SD card lasts, also depends on how you use it. You may lose files from an SD card due to corruption or physical damage as well. 

Other Common causes of photo & video loss from SD card:

• Accidental deletion – Accidental Deletion can happen to anyone while transferring photos, while deleting some unwanted files and accidentally deleting important files, etc.
• Virus Attack – Always keep your antivirus updated on your system and run it on your SD card as well regularly
• SD card formatting – Beware of SD card formatting as it deletes the entire data on your memory card, including important files
• System not recognizing SD card – Sometimes, a system may simply not recognize your SD card, check out ways to resolve this error. 

Urgent: Stop using your SD card immediately when you accidentally delete or lose files from an SD card. Doing so, may overwrite the existing files and you may not be able to restore them. 

Note: Not even a data recovery software can retrieve overwritten or permanently deleted files. 

How to Recover Lost Photos on SD Card

You may try the following DIY methods to restore deleted files from a SD card. 

1. Check for Backup 

The first thing you should do when you accidentally delete or format files from an SD card, is to look for a backup folder of those files, if any. Check if you have created a backup on the memory card or may be on your computer. The problem is resolved in seconds if you have a backup folder ready. So always make it a best practice to continuously backup your data. This will help you avoid the need for an extreme recovery procedure on your SD card.  

2. Get help of Professional Photo Recovery Software

If you fail to take a backup on time, this may mean you have lost the files permanently. In such a scenario, you should waste no time and get hold of a professional photo recovery software. We assessed a few popular photo & video recovery software online and here’s our take. 

Stellar Photo Recovery is undoubtedly the best software to recover deleted files from an SD card. The software can restore unlimited photos and videos from an SD card of any brand. 

Using this software, you can recover photos, videos and other files from corrupt, damaged, or accidentally deleted memory cards. You can bring back photos and videos of almost any format using this tool and can recover from SD cards of CCTVs, DSLRs, Digicams, Android, iPhone, drones, etc. 

The software is available for both Windows and Mac.

 Steps to recover deleted files using Stellar Photo Recovery

1. Connect the device carrying the SD card to your computer.
2. Download and launch Stellar Photo Recovery Software on your desktop.
3. Select the location from where you want to recover the missing pictures. Click Scan. The scanning process will begin.
4. The ‘Scanning Completed Successfully!’ dialog box is displayed. Here, you can preview all the missing pictures from your SD card. Go for the Deep Scan option if you don’t see the missing picture you’re looking for. Once you find your missing files, select all of them for recovery. You may also choose to recover only selected files. 
5. Now click Recover and enter a specific location to save your recovered files. 
6. You can also Preview the recovered files and save them at a desired location

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=86AWov6Zzyo 

Wrapping Up

Losing your precious pictures and videos from an SD card can be terrible. Once you understand the cause of missing pictures from an SD card, you may be able to recover it with the help of backup (if available) or using a professional photo recovery software. Stellar Photo Recovery is a great software that helps you recover missing pictures of any format from an SD card of any brand. This is surely one of the most effective software that we would recommend to beginners as well as professional DSLR users, graphic designers, illustrators, etc.