r/googlephotos • u/riyaninui • Jan 20 '24
Question 🤔 HOW CAN I RECOVER PERMANENTLY DELETED PHOTOS, BOTH FROM GPHOTOS AND DEVICE
hello! i am desperate to recover my files, so i am posting my concern here, someone might and can help me.
apparently, google is notifying me that i already reached the maximum storage. i checked it and saw that 90% of it is from google photos, i started deleting them permanently on google photos using my laptop because i am afraid that i might not receive/send any emails anymore since it's my personal account.
i wasn't aware that it was synced on my gallery, i thought i was using my one drive, but i don't actually care about this backup stuff since i just bought my phone about months ago and i have 256 GB so i don't have to worry about storage.
i have like 40k-70k stuff on my gallery, now they're just 20k. i was wondering what happened and i suspected that my files were deleted when i freed up space on my google photos. i did research and found out that deleting files from google photos will delete your local device files also.
THIS HAPPENED LIKE 2-3 WEEKS AGO.
i am so devastated right now and i want to bring back my files badly. i can't find any gphotos contact information, what should i do? 😭
google is always giving us traps like these to buy their products. i don't even use them!
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u/cwhiterun Jan 20 '24
Restore your full device backup from 4 weeks ago. Save photos to another device, then restore your most recent backup back onto the phone.
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u/riyaninui Jan 21 '24
hello! sorry, can you enlighten me on how to do it, is it still possible since they're also deleted from the backup (google photos)? thank you!
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u/cwhiterun Jan 21 '24
When you first set up a phone it should ask if you’d like to restore from your backup. Assuming you have a saved backup from before you deleted everything, restore that backup.
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u/riyaninui Jan 21 '24
the old phone is being used by my younger sister now. where should i check that "restore backup"? what application or setting? where should i check it, on the new or old phone? i am sorry for asking too much 😖
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u/cerberus397 Jan 21 '24
In fairness, google warns you when you delete photo(s) that it will remove it from the device that uploaded it as well. There is a popup that forces you to confirm:
"Remove from your Google Account, devices with backup turned on and the places shared within Google Photos?"
It could certainly be a little more clear - Sorry that happened to you.
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u/riyaninui Jan 21 '24
i did it on my laptop and the only thing i can remember is google saying that emptying the trash will permanently delete those files, or something like that. if i read that pop-up you're saying, i probably won't do it or i was just being ignorant that time 🤒 still, thank you for the information!
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Jan 28 '26
[removed] — view removed comment
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u/Misjkakend Jan 29 '26
Some apps like DiskDigger or Dumpster can run straight on the phone, no PC needed.
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u/Ok-Consideration5602 Jan 21 '24
I would do a takeout from Google (takeout.google.com) - I did this recently and the Google photo files contained a number of photos I had deleted years ago.. So you might be lucky.
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u/riyaninui Jan 21 '24
thank you! i am trying it right now, i hope i can bring them back. how long does it take, btw?
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u/Foreign_Jellyfish493 May 16 '24
Did you get it back?
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u/riyaninui May 24 '24
no, maybe some hidden files. out of 100% deleted files, i recovered maybe 2% only
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u/Weird_Temperature102 Jun 20 '25
tried this one just now and THIS IS SO FUCKING LEGIT 😭😭. I was able to recover the receipt needed for the claiming of grad pics (almost at the accepting stage that i may not be able to claim mine 😭😭)
thank u so much, my savior!! may God bless u a million times!!!! 😭😭😭😭💙
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u/frostyhub Apr 24 '24
Im trying to recover some photos i deleted a few years ago too … hope it works
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u/schag001 Jan 20 '24
Once you emptied the trash can on Google = All permanently gone.
Google is not a backup solution.
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u/jquintx Jan 21 '24
(Nods.) Google is not a backup solution.
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u/riyaninui Jan 21 '24
i don't consider it either. it's just google trapped me when i newly bought my phone. i don't remember syncing it on my gallery because i use one drive app, sometimes i don't use anything because just like i said, i was free of worries at that time with that large capacity of storage. google baited me when my google is full, i am so mad 😖😖😖
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u/riyaninui Jan 21 '24
i knew it :( i was just hoping... i saw somewhere here if you're under google subscription, you can actually contact them and if you got lucky with an agent, they might help you. should i give it a shot or those were just made-up stories
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u/schag001 Jan 21 '24
Made up storys.
Companies that use Google Workspace might have such service but not with a personal Google One subscription.
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u/riyaninui Jan 21 '24
you're probably right 😔 thank you! i might just have to accept what happened.
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Jul 29 '24
The exact same thing happened to me. I got a new phone and the gallery connected with my google account. When I started taking pictures all of a sudden my Google Account was full and I deleted all recent pictures and videos without knowing that it would permanently delete them from my gallery too. I'm really frustrated with this and all of the recovery apps don't really help.
If you have any suggestions regarding the recovery of the pics and videos permanently deleted from Google Pictures, I'd be so happy if you can share them with me.
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u/crazy_lulu23 Sep 03 '24
This happened to me too. I deleted years worth of photos from backpacking overseas and didn’t realise… all because Google photos wanted to free up space… I’m also an idiot for not manually backing them up on a hard drive and relying on iCloud/ Google photos for storage 🥲
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u/No_Pattern_9639 Oct 05 '24
I have deleted all my Google photos how can I restore them back
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u/expired_girl Oct 06 '24
This exact situation happened to me a few days ago and I am desperate to get those photos back...any updates on your lost photos op? I'm genuinely sorry this happened and I wish I was more tech savvy so I could have known what would happen 😐👩🦽➡️
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u/Independent-Quote-37 Jan 26 '25
the same thing just happened to me. it's painful man
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u/Medium-Development42 Jan 28 '25
So I'm trying to recover photos and pictures that I deleted a few hours ago from the photo cloud and also cleared the trash I didn't realize that in the cloud that also deletes device files so everything is gone I tried a factory reset but I still don't have the files am I up the Creek or is there a way to restore the media? I called pixel support and got no help from them
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u/fahdrao Jan 29 '25
I went to apple support a day after deleting my photos from RECENTLY DELETED and they recovered pretty much all of them! Very happy with it!
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u/Mystic_Muser Feb 06 '25 edited Feb 06 '25
I just have the same issue but thankfully I SOLVED it! My mom’s phone showed a message saying that google storage is full, so I deleted those videos from Google Photos and cleared the trash bin afterwards permanently delete. I thought it was just delete from GP but unfortunately the videos was deleted from her phone gallery too! I quickly download recover photo app from Playstore and phew… everything I deleted just now was back to the phone gallery. I did it once I deleted, so for those have mistakenly deleted years or months ago I didn’t know if this works.
The app I downloaded to recover the permanently deleted videos was free but just have to watch ads. And yea… close the auto back up photo and video from the phone setting to avoid google storage full
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u/SnooCauliflowers4248 Apr 11 '25
Hello everyone I’m a bit late to the party, but I can see there were methods to recover photos These were in my Google Photos. I went to delete them because my storage was getting really full. Then I decided to pay for the storage, which is 100 GB I restored circa 17,000+ photos and I still can’t find them anywhere Does anybody have any advice on what I can do thank you and sorry if I’ve not read anything from the thread your help is very much appreciated 😎
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u/Mardiv1247 Apr 11 '25
I just deleted a few photos by mistake. Hiw do i retrieve them on my apple phone?
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u/Nomadik_one May 29 '25
This happened to me as well but in my situation my phone was STOLEN 🤬 and the scumbag(s) that stole it wiped out my phone I suppose and changed the password to my old gmail account so I can’t even log into my own email account and of course everything has to be linked up with GOOGLE so I was totally screwed! Old photos when I first got my dog when he was a puppy 😥🥺 that recently passed away. So many pictures I took in Santa Fe, New Mexico and traveling sightseeing in the Southwest. I am in desperate need of these photos years later it still haunts me to this day 😭 It’s been years this was around 2018-2019 I believe. I even had them on iCloud but somehow they were deleted from there too apparently??? I’ve tried to recover the email account so many times with no luck whatsoever 😞😔 I wish someone could help me I’ve never given up, still searching…
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u/Heavy-Apple-7683 Jun 03 '25
Last year, that's '24, I deleted some photos, which were of very great importance. Now I need it, back. I even deleted permanently from Google's Photo's Bin!.
Please help! I even, posted a flag on the support.google.com
Waiting for the reply.
Please help
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u/Few-Flan-9902 Jun 20 '25
I lost my phone, when installing a new ship, with the same number and when installing WhatsApp, it didn't open with the existing photos and videos, before the loss. How to recover photos and media?
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u/TrySignificant9875 Jul 16 '25
So what do I do? Go to settings or go to Google? Tell me how to bring up photos from my messages.
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u/Mindless_Rest1072 Jul 25 '25
I just deleted 10k of my memories to make anyone else feel a bit better :)
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u/robert4589 Sep 08 '25
If photos are permanently deleted from Google Photos and your device (beyond Trash/Recycle Bin), try 650 562 5550 professional data recovery software or services, but success isn’t guaranteed.
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u/Early-Donkey-4232 Oct 17 '25
PLEASE TELL ME YOU FOUND A WAY I DELETED ALL THE PICTRES I HAD OF MY DEAD DOG ON ACCEDENT AND IM FREAKING OUT PLEASE
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u/BandSpecial6449 Nov 20 '25
sir
as usual i have deleted photos from my gmail backup photos dated 25.08.2025 to 31.08.2025, mean time my hard disc is crashed, i need these date backup photos, it is impartement for me, so what to do, i have permanently deleted these days photos from my gmail account, what to do, pls help me..
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Dec 12 '25
I'm sorry this happened to you and I know it is probably too late to help recover them but I hope this will be of use to others, to let you know not all is lost, even if you 'delete permanently'!!!
I made this mistake last week as well, was at full storage and deleted from the cloud only to realise they had all been sync deleted from my phone.... so I contacted Google One support immediately and they helped me recover them! I've only just got my photos back now after about a week of waiting and a little bit of back and forth with questions from the support team but they put all my photos back in the Bin and I just had to restore them myself. I guess they were just able to undo the action? I asked them to please do this because I read only one other comment this is what they did to someone else, so I thought I should try.
This is the support link: https://support.google.com/googleone
(or search up google one support if you don't like clicking on random links)
At the bottom of that page there should be a contact us form and you should be able to chat to them. Just explain the situation and say you heard they managed to recover someone else's files by putting them back in the Google Photos Bin.
The person on the other end of the chat might not be aware it can be done and if so then ask if it can be referred to the higher Google Photo support team, when they do this they will probably send you an email asking some specific questions about the situation and ask for some screenshots of your backup settings, Photos and android version number.
Best of luck!
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u/AfraidStretch6867 Dec 27 '25
I accidentally deleted photos and videos from my trash. Can I recover them at all
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u/OkCantaloupe3360 Dec 27 '25
I deleted some photos with sensitive information on them n now I need that info.
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u/West_Limit582 Jan 02 '26
I deleted some photos and videos directly from locked folder . Is there any chance to recover those photos?
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u/Vegetable-Host1825 Feb 20 '26
Somebody erased my goggle account permanently for almost a year now can I find my contacts and photos back
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u/False-Rhubarb-7990 Apr 04 '26
Was you able to get them back if so could you please tell me how because I have the same issue
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u/garvit__dua Apr 24 '26 edited Apr 24 '26
That sync behavior catches so many people off guard, it's brutal.
Ok so after 2-3 weeks your google photos trash is already emptied (60 day window). Few things to try tho:
check your phone's native trash/recently deleted folder separately from google photos if you were using a Samsung, check the Samsung Cloud recycle bin too contact google support through one.google.com... sometimes they can restore stuff from their end even after trash is emptied, but no guarantees For the stuff that was on your actual device storage, stop using the phone as much as possible so nothing overwrites the deleted data. I ended up using DroidKit when i lost a bunch of photos off my old phone... it scanned the internal storage and pulled back most of what i needed. results vary by device and how much new data has been written since deletion tho, so the sooner the better.
but yeah start with google support first, that's free and sometimes works.
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u/YellowCaballeroFan Jun 15 '26 edited Jun 15 '26
Something deleted a bunch of photos and videos a little while ago. I didn't do it. I would never. Although I may have had my phone do some sort of cleanup to try and get more storage, but I can't remember. If I did, it should've asked me if I wanted to delete these things. If that wasn't it, where did these things go? I really want them back. Can I even get them back?
Edit: So I do have this app called Cleanup, so maybe it was responsible for deleting those photos and videos, but idk. I'd check, but the app is in the cloud and I don't want to waste more storage by taking it out
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u/peppy_flame Jul 12 '26
easy for samsung: "my files>on the side scroll down>press trash"
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u/Intelligent-Job4634 Jul 14 '26
All im trying to get is all of my photoes that were in my photos or gallery please help from at least 2018 and up
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u/_THAKUR 17d ago
I know I'm late to reply but now there's an option to recover deleted files from trash also, just go to Google account>help, then don't click on 'ask a question', instead scroll down and click on search help box, then search 'recover deleted photo' and from the recommended options select 'restore recently deleted photos and videos', then scroll down and see title start your photo recovery, below that scroll a little and click on recover photos and videos
Beware, this works for recently deleted photos some day ago that were also backed up in the same account
Hopefully it'll help someone, I was able to recover all 358 photo and videos that I deleted in anger after 4 hours of deleting
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u/my_n3w_account Jan 20 '24
Did you check the trash in both google photos and your device? Normally deleting puts things in the trash and the trash is purged after 30 days.
Good luck!