PhotoRec
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PhotoRec is file data recovery software designed to recover lost files including video, documents and archives from hard disks, CD-ROMs, and lost pictures.
License model
- Free • Open Source
Application types
Country of Origin
France
EU
Platforms
- Mac
- Windows
- Linux
- BSD
Features
PhotoRec News & Activities
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- aiden076 liked PhotoRec
04Kate added PhotoRec as alternative to Kingshiper Data Recovery
ILoveDragons added PhotoRec as alternative to RecuperaBit- r3v0000 liked PhotoRec
- kusarebaita rated PhotoRec
- zlelmefs reviewed PhotoRec
Lemme get this straight... you made a program whose core function boils down to generating and interacting with a large list- and you failed to implement a GUI, so that list can't be conveniently sorted, searched etc. Fail
PhotoRec information
Developed by
CGSecurity Licensing
Open Source (GPL-2.0) and Free product.Written in
Rating
Average rating of 4.3Alternatives
143 alternatives listedSupported Languages
AlternativeTo Categories
Security & Privacy, OS & Utilities, System & HardwareGitHub repository
- 1,882 Stars
- 221 Forks
- 76 Open Issues
- Updated Apr 9, 2025
Comments and Reviews
Someone deleted photos from my SD card without my knowing it, which annoyed me to no end, but I had to calm down and just focus on trying to get them back.
First thing I did was to lock the SD card so that nothing else could be written onto it. Then I got an external hard drive to act as the recipient of the recovered files, and plugged it in. Then I started googling for software to try. I heard that Exif Untrasher does miracles, but that's a Mac OS X-only product, and I don't have a Mac. I wasted time downloading Wondershare Data Recovery, Easeus Data Recovery Wizard, and Recuva. Recuva saw the photos but claimed that they were irretrievable. Wondershare saw the photos but then said that they would only be able to retrieve 100 MBs of files and that I would need to purchase an upgrade to grab all of them. Easeus trundled through the disk, said that it retrieved the photos, but when I tried to look at them in Microsoft Paint, in Google Picasa, or even in Microsoft Windows preview, it said that each of the photos was an "Invalid Image". Ain't nobody got time for all that!
Other than Exif Untrasher, the two softwares that had the best reviews, work on Windows, and were free, were FreeUndelete, and PhotoRec, so I downloaded both of them. FreeUndelete didn't find any of the deleted images. I let PhotoRec run through the card, in "whole disk" mode, and took a nap. Two hours later, I woke up, and I had two new folders on my external hard drive (recupdir.1 and recupdir.2). Together, they contained pretty much every single photo or video that had ever been deleted from the SD card in the past month including the recently-deleted photos! Hurray!!!
In his review of PhotoRec, Anamon called Christophe Grenier a "hero". I disagree. Christophe Grenier is a superhero! Give him all the donations!
[Edited by DanielZuckerman, March 20]
found only 'most recently deleted'
Lemme get this straight... you made a program whose core function boils down to generating and interacting with a large list- and you failed to implement a GUI, so that list can't be conveniently sorted, searched etc. Fail
Recovered thousands of photos from an SD card that Recuva failed to. So far no issues, and TestDisk works great as well!
Found all the old photos. Including NEF RAW files. Didn't have luck with the videos (Nikon Z9, which are found but not openable).
Five stars for photos.
Don't let the DOS-like user interface fool you. This is the BEST software to recover photos from SDCard. You just select the SD Card, select a directory to place the recovered files, and BOOM, everything will be there. Can't be better than that. And it's totally free!
I used PhotoRec on my GNU/Linux PC (Xubuntu 20.10) to undelete deleted photos on an SD card in my camera. It worked phatastically and took not too much time. Great software, I immediately donated a few bucks.
You can define a directory where to store the recovered files, and everything that the software finds will be stored there, so make sure to have enough free space on the external drive or whatever. The file names are auto-generated by the programme.
A graphical user interface would be nice of course, but on the other hand, the console program does what it should and is easy to understand.