How to Recover Photos from Recycle Bin?

“How long do deleted files stay in Recycle Bin? How can I get back my photos?”

Will you store a copy and the original archive of your pictures on the computer? Many people tend to do this for the sake of data backup or storage.

To maximize the usage of the device storage or prolong the lifespan of the hard drive, users need to prevent their hard drives from running low storage all the time.

Therefore, they will delete some unwanted files regularly. During the organizing, many important files like family photos, screenshots, etc., are easy to be deleted accidentally or intentianlly.

Or even worse, they might have accidentally emptied the Recycle Bin.

If you haven’t emptied the Recycle Bin/delete them from the bin again yet, it is still lucky that you could restore them in one step. Otherwise, you have to recover deleted photos after emptying Recycle Bin, or, recover items deleted from Recycle Bin.

Now you could learn how to retrieve deleted pictures from computer Recycle Bin in the following part.

How to recover photos from Recycle Bin?

Different solutions are provided to help you in different situations.

1. Head over to the Recycle Bin directly

After deletion, if you haven’t made any further operations like accidentally emptying the Recycle bin, or deleting it again from the trash bin, you could directly restore them.

Notes:✎...

If you discover that the deleted files not in Recycle Bin, then perhaps the photos were permanently deleted. Move on to the next method.

Go to Recycle Bin > find or search for your wanted photos > right-click the files > click Restore.

Then the deleted pictures would be restored to their original location.

2. Recover deleted pictures via previous versions

How to recover pictures from Recycle Bin? If the deleted pictures were all stored in a folder, then you could restore previous versions of files/folders to get the deleted files back.

But please note that the previous versions come from the restore points and File History. It is to say, it only stores the copies of C: drive files, because only in the C: drive, the System Protection is enabled by default to make restore points.

Step 1. Go to File Explorer > find the folder in which the removed photos were stored.

Step 2. Right-click the folder > Properties > Previous Versions > choose a version > Restore.

This method could also help you find previous version of Word documents after system crash or deletion.

3. Recover deleted photos on computer via Windows backup

How to retrieve deleted pictures from computer Recycle Bin? Windows backup is also an option if you have made one.

Step 1. Go to Control Panel > System and Security > Backup and Restore (Windows 7).

Step 2. Click Restore my files.

Step 3. Click Browse for files/folders > select the deleted photos you want > Next.

Step 4. Specify the destination > click Restore.

With a backup, you could easily recover permanently deleted photos from computer.

How to recover pictures from Recycle Bin efficiently?

If things get even worse that you have emptied the trash bin, how to recover deleted photos after emptying Recycle Bin? Or, how about when the files were lost from it? What could you do to get them back without backup?

A great number of users never back up their files because they thought that they won’t be that bad luck. But, sometimes it just happens. And you could hardly recover deleted photos on your own without a backup.

However, tools can help you. You might as well choose a professional Windows data recovery tool you assist you.

MyRecover is a preferable option. With its help, you could easily restore deleted and missing files from HDD/SSD/USB/SD card, etc.

All the deleted data could be recovered with the original filename, format, quality, etc., kept. 

Also, you could restore files while scanning and don’t need to wait for a complete result. 

In addition, it facilitates you to recover over 200 types of data, including 42 kinds of images. 

Whichever version of Windows OS you are using, Windows 11/10/8/7/Server, you could easily operate it.

Step 1. Install and run the software > Hover the mouse over the source drive that contains the deleted photos > click Scan.

Step 2. Search for the files you need by using the filters: Size, Type, Date modified, etc.

Step 3. Go to Recycle Bin > select the pictures you need to restore > click Recover x files. Or go to Other missing files > Image > select your wanted photos to restore.

Not only an internal hard drive, but it also applies to an external one. You could restore files from external hard drive using it.

Wrap things up

In this post, how to recover photos from Recycle Bin has been introduced with detailed info and steps.

You could look into the Recycle Bin at first, then check the File History, Windows backups, or, much easier, just use a Windows data recovery tool to save your time.

Backups can always help you solve your problems. If you haven’t formed a habit of backing up files, it is recommended to use a Windows backup tool from now on.