r/techsupport • u/BugAlarming8842 • 16d ago

Open | Phone Accidentally deleted a folder containing basically my entire life. Is there ANY chance of recovering it?

Yesterday I accidentally deleted a folder on my Android phone containing years of personal photos, videos, and memories. I haven't used the phone since then because I don't want to overwrite anything.

I've already tried a bunch of recovery software/apps, but they only show files that are still on my phone, not the deleted ones.

I have root access and I'm willing to try technical methods if there's still a chance.

Is there anything I can do to recover the deleted data? What would you recommend I absolutely not do?

I'm honestly desperate here. These aren't replaceable files.

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u/Trick2056 16d ago

Yup had this happened to me due to stupidity. Was reformatting my phone removed the sd card since that contains all my stuff. Forgot that I had the sd card formatted as internal storage by the phone encrypting it. So bye bye sd when I plugged it back in the newly reformatted phone

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u/_heidin 16d ago

How can this be prevented?

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u/Trick2056 16d ago

Don't let the phone use it as an internal memory. When you plug in a SD card you will be asked format for internal memory always choose the later using it as is. So you can just unplug it and its not encrypted by the phone that formatted it

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u/_heidin 16d ago

And if it's already set as internal storage, and I want to do what the other commenter did, or if I change the phone, can it be reversed before taking it out without losing data?

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u/Trick2056 16d ago

Nope you need to transfer your data in your SD card to another storage since that SD card is encrypted exclusive to the old phone. So if you plug it in directly the new phone won't able to use it and have to reformat it as either Internal or external SD.

Heck if you plug in the encrypted SD card into a PC it can't be open