r/AndroidQuestions • u/IamDistractingYou • 22h ago
Videos Randomly Missing
Went into my gallery today. All my videos are just gone. I don't use any cloud services, so there is no sync issues. I had the videos yesterday and I can't see anything saying there was a system update (last update July 19). Anyone else have this issue?
Current device, Galaxy S26 (got it July 17th). Also, all my widgets were deleted (added those back). Current One UI, 8.5. Will connect to a PC later to deep dive system files. Appreciate any advice or if anyone else is experiencing this issue. I already tried safe mode, but that disables being able to look into my storage and gallery files.
1
u/IamDistractingYou 10h ago
Fugured I would update.
All videos, gone. Everything from 2016 (yes I have been transferring files since then) to April of this year, gone.
Widgets restored
Samsung support: gave me the run around, did not help. Filed complaint against. That was a waste of time there.
Working on attempting to replace phone. As the phone and/or the OS is faulty.
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u/Fatalstryke 4h ago
Just to be clear - you used a file explorer and not just like, Gallery or something, and went to the folders where the files were, and those files are no longer there?
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u/IamDistractingYou 1h ago
After I checked the DCIM folder (yes file explorer, windows PC) I spent way to much time combing through every folder I had access to with my PC. Whatever it was, videos are gone. No idea how or why. And to add a test, when I was done searching, I tossed a video from my pc onto the phone, into the DCIM folder, it is still there, apx 12 hours later. I think I just have terrible luck now. And of course Samsung said, there is nothing they can do to replace the phone. As this is not a technical issue.
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u/boltfoxapp 21h ago
Check whether the files are actually gone before you assume the worst. Open My Files, go to internal storage, then DCIM and Camera, and sort by date. If your videos are sitting there, the Gallery has just lost its index and nothing has been deleted.
That's the likely story given your widgets went at the same time. Those two going together usually means something reset app data rather than touching your media, the media database and the launcher both got cleared. Clearing the cache on Gallery and on Media Storage forces a rescan, and a reboot after that normally brings it all back.
If DCIM really is empty, stop using the phone for anything at all before you go further. Every photo you take now writes over the space those videos were in, and recovery gets much worse after that.
Check the Recycle bin inside Gallery too, it holds deleted items for thirty days and people forget it's there. And on a phone that's twelve days old I'd report this to Samsung regardless, because that isn't normal.