Important life moments like: wedding, graduation, and housewarming are often saved in photographs. Accidentally losing these photos can cause discomfort, leaving you with no option but to go for available picture data recovery software. An ideal recovery tool is supposed to be quite reliable and can easily retrieve most of your lost photos from any digital storage device.
In this article, we look at a selection of the top 10 best photo recovery software in 2024, and the key features you should watch out for in deciding which is best for your situation.
Disk Drill Photo Recovery
Disk drill is a software that supports photo recovery from storage devices such as: SD cards, SSDs, HDDs, and other external devices. This tool offers its users a free trial option of about 500MB free recovery threshold (Windows only). Disk drill operates on an advanced scanning algorithm that can restore more than 100 photo file formats.
One thing that sets this picture file recovery software apart is its Recovery Vault, which provides an extra layer of security for all deleted photographs.
Compatibility: Windows, Mac, iOS, and Android
| Pros | Cons |
| ✔️ It has a convenient user interface ✔️ It is equipped with a sorting mechanism that isolates photos from other data | ➖ Difficulty in recovering compressed photos |
Stellar Photo Recovery
This is a versatile solution that supports the recovery of all photo formats from several camera types such as: security cameras, mirrorless cameras, and drones. This software does not only retrieve deleted pictures but also fixes the corruption the photo carries.
Furthermore, Stellar photo recovery comes with extra user-centric features like: Live file preview, sortable scan results, scan now recover later, and multiple file-saving options. It is built to perform seamlessly with large storage devices up to 18TB and is also capable of retrieving uncompressed RAW images.
Compatibility: Windows, MacOS, and Linux
| Pros | Cons |
| ✔️ Supports recovery of HFS+, APFS, FAT, ExFAT and NTFS photo formats ✔️ High success rate in terms of recovery | ➖ The free version is allowed to recover just 10 photo files |
Wondershare Recoverit
This Is a comprehensive software that is capable of retrieving photos from loss scenarios like: accidental delete, lost partition, formatted device, damaged hard drive, and several others. It carries out a comprehensive scanning activity within the external and internal storage to fish out deleted pictures.
Typically, Wondershare Recoverit allows you to preview your pictures before recovering. Therefore if pictures turn out unrecoverable, you won’t have to pay any fee.
Compatibility: Windows and Mac
| Pros | Cons |
| ✔️ Has fast scanning and deep scanning processes ✔️ It has an advanced plan that works on two different computers | ➖ The paid version requires extra payment to fully access photo repair |
PhotoRec
PhotoRec is one of the few open-source picture data recovery software that recovers photos using its file signature alone. During recovery, this software goes after the underlying data, which makes photo recovery possible even when the system has been formatted or severely damaged.
PhotoRec ensures the safety of the user’s data as it uses Read-only mode to access the storage device you want to recover photos.
Compatibility: Windows, Linux, FreeBSD, NetBSD, OpenBSD, Sun Solaris, and MacOS
| Pros | Cons |
| ✔️ It is a free photo recovery software ✔️ Works with storage devices like: SD card, HDD, USB drive, etc. | ➖ Poor recovery of fragmented photos ➖ Obsolete user interface |
Remo Recover
This is an award-winning photo recovery tool that is quite famous for retrieving photo formats like: JPEG, PNG, PSD, RAW, GIF, and more. It functions using two scanning modes (normal scan and deep scan). Normal scan is used to recover photos from simple loss scenarios, while deep scan carefully goes through each sector of your storage device to recover images.
Just in case you forget the password to your protected photos, Remo Recover has a feature that helps you decrypt and retrieve all the photos.
Compatibility: macOS, Windows, Android, and iOS
| Pros | Cons |
| ✔️ Offers 24/7 technical assistance ✔️ Supports recovery of RAW photo types like: CR2, CRW, NEF, ARW, SR2, ORF, etc. | ➖ Recovered photos don’t always retain their original name |
ONERECOVERY
ONERECOVERY is one of the best photo data recovery software out there. It is a comprehensive and expert solution to retrieve photos from over 1000 loss scenarios including hard drive failure, software crash, accidental deletion, etc. This software is quite efficient when it comes to retrieving high-resolution photos like: 4k,8k, and ultra HD.
It is adopted by professionals around the world due to its high success rate, ease of use, and security. ONERECOVERY stands apart from others as it makes use of AI tech to analyze the exact problem within a file structure before recovery.
Compatibility: Windows and Mac
| Pros | Cons |
| ✔️ It has an intuitive user interface ✔️ The Double scan feature makes photo recovery easy | ➖ Deep scanning takes time |
If you want to know the steps to retrieve lost or deleted pictures using ONERECOVERY, this post will offer user-friendly guidance to both Windows and Mac users:
Recuva Photo Recovery
This picture data recovery software is not limited to recovering photos alone. It has a Secure Deletion mode that gives you an option to permanently delete photos you no longer wish to recover.
Unlike other software, Recuva offers average computer users a more guided experience to make the recovery process less strenuous.
With Recuva, users get the chance to scan and recover photo data from virtual hard drives and all other storage devices.
Compatibility: Windows
| Pros | Cons |
| ✔️The free version has no limit to basic photo recovery ✔️ It has a portable version available to its users ✔️ It can also work as a video recovery software | ➖ There is no customer support on the free version |
EaseUS Data Recovery Wizard
EaseUS is a picture data recovery software that supports storage devices of several brands like: Microsoft, HP, Lenovo, Dell, and more. With just a click, this tool can repair and restore corrupted photo files from all types of storage devices.
The free version of this software comes with the Preview option and also gives users a chance to recover up to 2GB of data on Windows.
Compatibility: Windows and Mac
| Pros | Cons |
| ✔️ It can retrieve corrupted or restore deleted photos from the recycle bin ✔️ It retrieves formatted partitions quickly | ➖ Scanning process takes a lot of time |
Data Rescue 6
Retrieving deleted photos with Data Rescue 6 only takes three simple steps namely: Select and scan your drive, Preview photos, and initiate the recovery process.
It’s recognized as one of the best photo recovery apps because of its capability to select whichever storage source you want to start and end your scan.
Compatibility: Windows and Mac
| Pros | Cons |
| ✔️ It allows the storage and control of 15 scans at the same time ✔️ Simulation of physical RAID (redundant array of independent disks) is allowed | ➖ It requires additional media storage for scanning and recovery |
DMDE Picture File Recovery
This is a very good solution for picture searching and editing, as well as photo recovery from several storage devices. This photo recovery app has a sophisticated search feature that helps to reconstruct and recover deleted photos after they’ve experienced serious damage.
DMDE has a disk clone tool that allows you to write and create images back to disk. It supports national file names, large files, large disks, compressed NTFS, and several others.
Compatibility: Windows and Linux
| Pros | Cons |
| ✔️ Incredible scan and recovery speed ✔️ It has low-level disc editing | ➖ The free version doesn’t have many features to offer |
Conclusion
Before selecting an appropriate picture file recovery software, there are some necessary factors to consider, such as the use case, OS compatibility, features, and licensing. Without these, selecting any of the top 10 best photo recovery software above might be hard.
If all you need to retrieve is a small amount of photos, it is best to go for the free version license. On the other hand, if the photos you want to recover are bulky, then you should buy a license from ONERECOVERY.
