My photos disappeared, how can I get them back?

[WPCentral Question]

My photos disappeared

I connected my Nokia 1020 to my desktop (windows 10) and I deleted the low resolution photos from my Camera Roll. Then...all the remaining high resolution photos disappeared. Is there any solution to get them back? Please somebody help me to get my vacation's photos back.

 

[gpobernardo]

Re: My photos disappeared

What do you mean they disappeared - did you 1) use your phone > Photo Hub > Camera Roll to check if the photos are still there, or did you 2)use your Windows 10 PC to browse for them?

If 1), then don't worry, your highres photos should still be in your L1020 - all you have to do is connect your phone to your PC again and copy them from your phone. However, you should not attempt to delete the low resolution images again. The phone only recognizes the low-resolution image, but then uses the additional information from the highres version in case you would need to reframe or zoom into the photo. This means that images that have the _highres.jpg extension without the ordinary .jpg extension will not be displayed in the Photo Hub, even if the highres image is still in your phone.

If 2), then that is absolutely strange. Deleting the low resolution photos should have not deleted the highres photos... unless they were included by mistake. Unfortunately, if this is really the case (2), then there is no way to recover the high resolution photos again. Chances are that they were not backed up to OneDrive even if auto-upload was enabled.

You may create a Windows Central account to respond in this thread.

 

[KostasP]

Re: My photos disappeared

Τhank you very much for your detailed answer.
Unfortunately, in both cases you mention the photographs do not exist.
I'm sure that I did not erase photos with _highres.jpg extensions. I mention that it is the second time that it happens.
I tried another computer with Windows XP but again nothing.
Unfortunately I do not store my photos to OneDrive.
I believe also that is absolutely strange and the highres photos are still in my phone.
I searched in Internet for many many hours for a solution but I found nothing. The only logical solution perhaps would be to find "something" to make my computer to recognize my Nokia as a drive. But I found no solution for phones with windows 8.1.
Thanks again for your answer and I apologize for my English. It's not my native language and also I am almost old man (66 years).

 

[gpobernardo]

Re: My photos disappeared

You're welcome. And age is just a number - my family members (and ancestors) reach(ed) 90+ and they still feel (or felt) young. :wink:

Once the lowres photos (those without the _highres.jpg) are deleted from your phone, they can never be recovered anymore. However, you may want to copy the _highres.jpg photos from your phone to your PC now since you mentioned that they are still in your phone. After copying those _highres.jpg images from your phone to your PC, you could try to rename one of the photos by removing the "_highres" name, e.g. WP_2015_08_24_00_00__highres.jpg to just WP_2015_08_24_00_00.jpg and see if that forces the phone to display the image in your Photo Hub in your Phone. If the photo appears in your phone, you could rename all of the photos by using a bulk rename utility.

Just keep a backup of the original _highres.jpg images in a separate folder in your PC before experimenting with the filenames... just to be safe.

 

[KostasP]

Re: My photos disappeared

Sorry if I was not clear. The "_highres" photos are not visible in my phone.
I just suppose that they are still (not deleted) in my phone

 

[gpobernardo]

Re: My photos disappeared

Hmm, let's try this to be clear:
1. Connect your Phone to your PC.
2. Go to Phone > Pictures > Camera Roll
3. What do you see in that folder?

The _highres.jpg photos are not visible through your phone through the Photo Hub. You need a separate app (Microsoft Files app) to see them. But for simplicity, let's just use your PC to see if they really are still in your phone or not.:smile:

 

[KostasP]

Re: My photos disappeared

My Computer\Nokia Lumia 1020\Phone\Pictures\Camera Roll

Only Videos (.mp4) which I had are visible

 

[gpobernardo]

Re: My photos disappeared

Hmm, I fear that all of your photos (including the _highres.jpg) are indeed deleted and unrecoverable. How did you delete the low resolution photos from your Camera Roll?

 

[KostasP]

Re: My photos disappeared

I connected my phone to the computer and via: My Computer\Nokia Lumia 1020\Phone\Pictures\Camera Roll, I deleted the low resolution photos, as we do for any picture, file etc. in windows: select and delete.

 

[gpobernardo]

Re: My photos disappeared

Thanks for the clarification. It appears to boil down to this: the mechanism of how the _highres.jpg photos disappeared may be unresolved (it could be that the phone automatically deleted them once the lowres photos were deleted), but for certain if the photos (highres) can't be seen in the Camera Roll through the PC (or through Files app), then they have indeed been deleted and (unfortunately) can no longer be restored with consumer-level access.

 

[KostasP]

I have the same opinion. I tried all possible solutions I found in the Internet but without any result.
So, I think that I must forget my vacation?s photos and I must be more careful next time: I have to transfer al my photos to the PC (_highres.jpg including) and delete the low resolution photos from there.
Anyway, thank you very much for your interest and your time and wish you the best.

 

[gpobernardo]

That would be one of the best practices in ensuring that your photos aren't lost forever, in addition to enabling the auto-upload feature to OneDrive.

You're welcome.