How to Recover Deleted Photos from Google Photos

BySidney

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Have you wondered why photos are important in our lives? Photos capture every moment we want to remember after it has passed. They remind us of the way certain people, places, or experiences made us feel, which is altogether precious.

Google Photos backs up your content so that you never lose a precious moment of your life. 

Did you delete one of your precious memories from your phone by mistake? Did you lose a whole album, only realizing afterward that you want it back? We’ve all done it and freaked out later.

The cool thing is that you can recover deleted photos from Google Photos without much trouble. Our article will help you with data recovery so that you don’t lose your sleep over lost photos. Keep reading.

Can I Recover Permanently Deleted Photos from Google Photos?

When you delete any photos from your phone, they don’t get permanently deleted right at that moment. Instead, they are moved to Trash and kept there for 60 days before finally disappearing from everywhere, as long as you don’t delete them manually.

In these 60 days, you can recover photos you have deleted back from the Trash. Here’s how you can check your Trash to see if the photos you want back are not permanently deleted.

  1. Open Google Photos App on your Android phone, computer, tablet, or access it in the browser.
  2. At the top left corner of your screen, tap Menu.
  3. Select Bin/Trash.
  4. If you see the photo you want to restore, you can get it back without a problem.

If you don’t find the photo you want to recover, you can’t restore it anymore. You don’t see the picture due to one of these reasons:

  • It has been more than 60 days since you deleted the photo.
  • Your photo wasn’t backed up in Google Photos before it was deleted from your gallery.
  • You have emptied your Trash after deleting the photo.
  • You have deleted the photo permanently from Trash.

How Can I Backup Photos in Google?

When you delete a photo from your phone’s gallery, it will still appear in Google Photos if it is backed up. The Backup and Sync option by Google lets you save your photos to your Google Account automatically. It makes data recovery easier when you lose your phone or even a single photo.

With Google Photos, you can see your backed up photos on any device from which you have logged in to your Google Account. You can upload, organize, edit, and share photos from the app, while it backs up all your data for you. 

The app also makes searching for old photos easier for you. Lost a photo with your cat in it? Just search “cat” and all the photos with your cat will appear in front of you.

You can also pool photos with your loved ones using shared albums on any device. Cool, isn’t it? 

Backing up your photos will make it easy to recover photos if you lose them. If you haven’t backed up your photos yet, we will help you do it.

Android Phone

If your phone is always running out of space, you can backup your photos and videos in the Google Photos app and delete them from your device to free up space.

To back up photos on your Android phone:

  1. Open the Google Photos App on your Android device.
  2. Sign in to your Google Account on which you want to back up your data.
  3. Tap the Menu icon on the top left corner of your screen.
  4. Select Settings > tap on Backup and Sync.
  5. Choose the folders you want to backup.

You can either choose to backup your pictures in high quality at a reduced file size or keep the original quality and size. However, if you choose to keep the original quality, you will have to stay under the 15GB storage limit.

You can turn backup on or off according to your storage and will. If you delete Google Photos while the backup is On, the Backup and Sync option will not turn off on its own.

Google also lets you backup using Wi-Fi or mobile data. If you turn off the mobile data backup for photos and videos, you will automatically switch to Wi-Fi only.

Here’s how you can choose the network settings: 

  1. Open Google Photos app on your device.
  2. Tap Menu on the top left corner of your screen.
  3. Tap on Setting > Backup and Sync
  4. You can choose the network to backup for photos and videos separately.

Below the Mobile Data Backup option, you will find another option for Roaming backup.

Computer

If you are a laptop or computer user, here’s how you can back up your files.

  1. First, download Backup and Sync on your device.
  2. Next, sign in to your Google Account and select Backup Photos or All Files.
  3. Lastly, click on the folders you want to backup, select upload size, and tap Start.

Remember: If you delete a photo from your computer, it will still be in Google Photos. If you delete a photo from Google Photos or Google Drive, it will remain on your computer.

Browser 

You can upload items and recover deleted pictures from Google Photos on your computer using the browser as well. Here’s how:

  1. Open photos.google.com in the browser.
  2. Click on the Upload option, on the top right corner, then select Computer.
  3. Select the photos you want to backup and click Open.
  4. If you want, you can drag and drop your photos from your computer into Google Photos. Dropping them on a specific album will store them inside it.

What You Need to Back up Photos & Videos

To make sure you can quickly restore deleted photos from Google, here’s all you need to help you back up your files the right way.

  • You need a stable internet connection. 
  • Your photos should not be larger than 200 MB.
  • You can backup the following photo types: .jpg, .png, .webp and a few RAW files. If you are unable to backup a photo, it might not be compatible with Google Photos.

Check the Status of Your Backup

To check the backup status of your photos:

  1. Open the Google Photos app on your Android phone or tablet.
  2. Sign in to your Google Account. 
  3. Tap on your Google Profile Picture on the top right corner of your screen. 
  4. The status of your photo backup will be displayed on your screen with the following messages:
  • Backup complete
  • Backup is off. Click on Turn on backup to turn it on.
  • Backing up
  • Preparing backup or Getting ready to back up
  • Waiting for connection or Waiting for Wi-Fi

Google Photos also backs up the photos and videos in your SD card. You can choose your SD folder to back it up along with other files.

In case you see a photo in your Google Photos that you recall deleting, it may be on your SD card. You can remove it from your device gallery.

Check your current storage status here.

How do I Recover Permanently Deleted Photos from Google Within 60 Days?

If you accidentally delete a photo from your phone’s gallery or Google Photos, we know it can be heartbreaking. However, if your photos are backed up, deleted photo recovery is easy within 60 days of moving them to trash. 

If you haven’t backed up a photo and deleted it from your Android device, it will remain in your phone’s Trash/Bin for 60 days. You can restore it from your device’s gallery.

Here’s how to recover deleted photos from Google Photos app:

  1. Open the Google Photos app on your device or visit photos.google.com.
  2. Tap the Menu icon on the top left corner of your screen.
  3. Click on Trash to open it.
  4. Touch and hold a photo to select the images you want to recover.
  5. You will see two options at the bottom of your screen: Restore and Delete.
  6. Tap Restore to add the deleted pictures back in your Google Photos library, and in the album of your phone’s gallery, it was previously in.

How do I Permanently Delete Photos from Google Photos?

Now that you know that the photos you move to Trash are not permanently deleted from Google Photos right away, you might wonder how you can permanently delete photos.

We will help you permanently delete photos from Google Photos. Here’s how:

  1. Open the Google Photos app on your Android phone or tablet.
  2. Sign in to your Google account 
  3. Click on Menu > Trash.
  4. Click on the three dots for More.
  5. Tap on Empty Trash and Delete.

Now, you have deleted your photos beyond recovery.

Note: When you empty your Trash, you will permanently delete all the files inside, losing any chance of recovering them.

When your Trash is filled up to the maximum 1.5GB limit, you will see a Delete Permanently request when you try to delete an item.

Summary

You can quickly recover deleted photos from Google Photos if they were previously backed up by your Google Account. This article will help you understand how delete photo recovery works in with Google Photos.

Make sure you always backup your data so you don’t lose it if you lose your phone. You can always delete any unwanted photos from the backup, or restore them whenever you want via the Google Photos app even if they’re in the trash.

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