How to get back deleted data on Android smartphone

Often there are sit­u­a­tions when you acci­den­tal­ly delete some­thing from your smart­phone. This usu­al­ly hap­pens with pho­tographs. It seems that now they can not be returned. But no. If you come to your sens­es in time, then you can per­form spe­cial actions that will still return the delet­ed data.

Main problem

Sure­ly you know that the com­put­er allows you to recov­er delet­ed files with­out much dif­fi­cul­ty. They can be found in the “Bas­ket” if you have not cleaned it before. Or you can use a spe­cial pro­gram that will try to return data that is no longer in the “Bas­ket”. Suc­cess is not achieved 100% of the time, but at least you can try. In the case of Android, things are some­what more com­pli­cat­ed.

Once upon a time, a smart­phone could be con­nect­ed to a com­put­er in the man­ner of a USB flash dri­ve — the device was defined as a remov­able dri­ve. This made it pos­si­ble to recov­er delet­ed files with the afore­men­tioned pro­grams, orig­i­nal­ly designed for a PC. Now every­thing, alas, is not so. For some time now, Android does not allow the smart­phone to be defined as a dri­ve. Because of this, the old soft­ware has become mean­ing­less — it sim­ply does not rec­og­nize the con­nect­ed device. This is what com­pli­cates data recov­ery the most. You have to use either syn­chro­niza­tion with a cloud ser­vice, or a spe­cial pro­gram, or supe­ruser rights, which are not avail­able on every device.

Search files in the Google cloud

Per­haps the eas­i­est way to recov­er files is to find them in Google cloud stor­age. Now the oper­at­ing sys­tem can syn­chro­nize many types of data. The search can be car­ried out both on the smart­phone itself and using a com­put­er — do not for­get to enter the user­name and pass­word from your Google account. You should search at the fol­low­ing address­es:

1. 1. contacts.google.com — This is where your con­tact book is stored. How­ev­er, con­tacts stored on the SIM card will not be includ­ed here! That is why we rec­om­mend not to use such an old-fash­ioned method of sav­ing them.

       

 

1. 1. play.google.com — as such, there are no files here. But on the oth­er hand, you can find out exact­ly which pro­grams and games were installed on your smart­phone. Only those appli­ca­tions that were down­loaded from oth­er sources will not be here.

       

 

1. 1. mail.google.com — con­tains all your emails received using the Gmail ser­vice. Delet­ed emails are in the “Trash” sec­tion.

       

 

1. 1. photos.google.com — copies of the pho­tos you take are uploaded here. But only if you have acti­vat­ed the appro­pri­ate syn­chro­niza­tion!

       

 

1. 1. drive.google.com is a Google Dri­ve ser­vice. It may con­tain your doc­u­ments and spread­sheets, espe­cial­ly if you opened them with Google office appli­ca­tions. Also, there may be back­up copies of some appli­ca­tions.

       

 

By the way, you can cre­ate an archive of most of the con­tents of your smart­phone at any time. This can be done on the takeout.google.com web­site — you need to go to it from your smart­phone. Here it is enough to click the “Cre­ate archive” but­ton, after which it remains to select the data you need. In the future, you can eas­i­ly restore all files from this archive. How­ev­er, prac­tice shows that con­stant syn­chro­niza­tion is enough, which you must have acti­vat­ed in your smart­phone set­tings.

Use of a PC and special programs

If syn­chro­niza­tion with Google servers was not car­ried out, then every­thing is much more com­pli­cat­ed. Also, prob­lems may arise with those files that are not sent to the cloud stor­age. For exam­ple, in the case of pho­tos, only those tak­en by the built-in cam­era are syn­chro­nized. If you received images via Blue­tooth or down­loaded them from the Inter­net, they remain exclu­sive­ly on the device. And if you acci­den­tal­ly delet­ed them, recov­ery will require seri­ous effort.

We rec­om­mend that you use a com­put­er, as well as one or anoth­er pro­gram. A fair­ly large num­ber of appli­ca­tions have now been cre­at­ed that can scan the mem­o­ry of a smart­phone or tablet for delet­ed files. Unfor­tu­nate­ly, there is no uni­ver­sal soft­ware. Some pro­grams work with some mod­els, oth­ers with oth­ers. There­fore, you have to down­load and install sev­er­al pro­grams — you may have to try each of them.

Anoth­er prob­lem is that the devel­op­ers of such soft­ware want to get paid for using their prod­uct. No, some apps are free. But many are still paid. Think for your­self what is more pre­cious to your heart: a rel­a­tive­ly small amount or delet­ed data. In this case, you are unlike­ly to pay for noth­ing. Usu­al­ly, the pro­gram first scans the device’s mem­o­ry. And if there are any delet­ed files, it dis­plays a list of them. Well, already before their restora­tion there is a request to pay.

So, here is an almost com­plete list of appli­ca­tions that can return delet­ed data from a smart­phone run­ning Android:

1. 1. EaseUS MobiSaver - a sim­ple pro­gram that works with smart­phones based on Android 5.0 and lat­er ver­sions of this oper­at­ing sys­tem. Recov­ers con­tacts, doc­u­ments, mes­sages and all kinds of media files. There is a free tri­al, the pur­chase of the appli­ca­tion will cost $39.95.

       

 

1. 1. Won­der­share Dr.Fone - this pro­gram can save not only in case of acci­den­tal dele­tion of files, but also in case of dis­play fail­ure, root­ing errors and oth­er atyp­i­cal prob­lems. Com­pat­i­ble with the “green robot” since its ver­sion 2.3. As expect­ed, there is a tri­al ver­sion. A year­ly license will cost $39.95, while a per­pet­u­al license is priced at $49.95.

       

 

1. 1. FonePaw Android Data Recov­ery - anoth­er pro­gram that tries to return to the user his mes­sages, call log, con­tact list and mul­ti­me­dia. It is stat­ed that the util­i­ty scans mem­o­ry faster than oth­ers, but in prac­tice it all depends on the ver­sion of the con­nec­tor locat­ed on the device and the cable used. Almost all ver­sions of Android are sup­port­ed — start­ing from 2.3. The tri­al ver­sion is large­ly lim­it­ed.

       

 

1. 1. Jihosoft Android Phone Recov­ery - Anoth­er rel­a­tive­ly easy-to-learn pro­gram that serves to recov­er a wide vari­ety of data con­tained on a smart­phone. Like many oth­er util­i­ties of this kind, this one sup­ports devices based on the “green robot” start­ing from its ver­sion 2.3. A dis­tinc­tive fea­ture of the appli­ca­tion is the avail­abil­i­ty of a ver­sion for Mac OS. How­ev­er, some com­peti­tors can also boast of it — we just don’t focus on it. You can try the pro­gram in action for free. The full ver­sion will require a pay­ment of $49.95.

       

 

1. 1. iCare Recov­ery - the devel­op­ers of this pro­gram posi­tion their cre­ation as free. Indeed, you can safe­ly use the basic recov­ery with­out pay­ing a dime. Some advanced fea­tures will also be avail­able — for exam­ple, scan­ning all pos­si­ble files in each block of mem­o­ry. How­ev­er, they are avail­able only in the Pro ver­sion, which is also free, but can only recov­er up to 1 GB of files. The reg­u­lar ver­sion of the pro­gram can return more data, but it can­not work with a mem­o­ry card of 32 GB or more. Well, if you want to get rid of all the restric­tions, if you please pay $69.

       

 

1. 1. Tenor­share Android Data Recov­ery - anoth­er pro­gram that can recov­er data from smart­phones based on a vari­ety of ver­sions of Android, up to the lat­est. Like oth­er appli­ca­tions already con­sid­ered, it does not require root. You can return SMS, and call log, and mul­ti­me­dia, and doc­u­ments, and much more. You can install the pro­gram not only on Win­dows, but also on Mac OS. The free ver­sion is tra­di­tion­al­ly lim­it­ed. There­fore, it is bet­ter to think about buy­ing the full ver­sion.  But at the same time, it will be pos­si­ble to recov­er data from only five devices. A larg­er num­ber of them implies the com­mer­cial oper­a­tion of the appli­ca­tion, so this option will cost sig­nif­i­cant­ly more.

       

 

1. 1. iMo­bile PhoneRes­cue — this pro­gram can also be used to recov­er the data con­tained on your device. It is also very easy to learn. It can be used to return mes­sages, call log, doc­u­ments, media files, and more. The tri­al ver­sion is very lim­it­ed, and the paid ver­sion costs $39.99 for a year. There is also a life­time option for one PC, priced at $49.99. The price tag for a busi­ness license starts at $299.

       

 

In a word, the list turned out to be notable. You just have to try at least a few of these pro­grams in action. Their descrip­tions usu­al­ly say that appli­ca­tions are able to return data from absolute­ly any smart­phone or tablet. But above we have already men­tioned that in fact this is not the case. There­fore, all pro­grams have a tri­al ver­sion.

As for the use of any of the con­sid­ered util­i­ties, then noth­ing com­pli­cat­ed awaits you. Even despite the fact that many appli­ca­tions have an Eng­lish-lan­guage inter­face. You only need to con­nect your smart­phone with a USB cable, and then start the mem­o­ry scan­ning process in the pro­gram. Well, then it remains to restore the files you need, if they have not yet been over­writ­ten with new data.

Dedicated smartphone apps

If you are hop­ing to get back your lost files with­out involv­ing a com­put­er, then we are in a hur­ry to dis­ap­point you. You can do this, but only if you have root rights. Alas, they are often not avail­able to own­ers of new devices. How­ev­er, we still rec­om­mend try­ing to down­load and install
Fra­ma­root, espe­cial­ly if you are using a device that is not the first fresh­ness. This pro­gram will grant root rights lit­er­al­ly with the click of a but­ton, if your smart­phone mod­el is sup­port­ed by it. If your device is unfa­mil­iar to the appli­ca­tion, you will have to car­ry out a more com­pli­cat­ed process, or else accept the fact that “root­ing” will fail. How­ev­er, this is not the top­ic of this arti­cle.

Since the afore­men­tioned util­i­ty is not avail­able on Google Play, do not for­get to acti­vate the “Allow instal­la­tion of appli­ca­tions from unknown sources” item in the device set­tings. Oth­er­wise, you will be able to down­load the apk file, but you will not be able to install it.

So, if you have root rights (they are also called supe­ruser rights), then you can use the appli­ca­tion
GT Recov­ery. We draw your atten­tion to the fact that it will also have to be down­loaded from a third-par­ty site — it is not avail­able on Google Play. If you don’t want to do this, you can install
undeleter — anoth­er pro­gram, a lit­tle less advanced.

What­ev­er choice you make, you need to run the “Deep Scan” in the appli­ca­tion. Dur­ing this process, the util­i­ty will check the entire file sys­tem for delet­ed data. If any of them can be restored, this will be imme­di­ate­ly report­ed.

Tips for the future

As you have noticed, the recov­ery of cer­tain files is asso­ci­at­ed with cer­tain dif­fi­cul­ties. That is why we rec­om­mend fore­see­ing them in advance by spread­ing straws for your­self. When buy­ing a new smart­phone, ask about the pres­ence of the “Bas­ket” func­tion in it. To be more pre­cise, the “Gallery” should have it. If it is avail­able, delet­ed pho­tos and videos will be stored on the device for anoth­er month, dur­ing which they can be safe­ly returned. For exam­ple, new Sam­sung smart­phones and tablets have this fea­ture. Its only trou­ble is that, for exam­ple, doc­u­ments and musi­cal com­po­si­tions are not saved in the “Bas­ket”.

If your smart­phone does not have this func­tion, you can orga­nize it through a third-par­ty appli­ca­tion. For exam­ple, Dump­ster does an excel­lent job with this task. This pro­gram works great with­out any root access. After installing it, all the pho­tos and videos you delete will be sent to Dump­ster. As long as you don’t clean up the pro­gram, the files can be eas­i­ly recov­ered. Well, the paid ver­sion of the appli­ca­tion pro­vides access to cloud stor­age, which will play the role of the “Bas­ket”. This will still free up mem­o­ry on the device when you delete some­thing. As for the free ver­sion, it suf­fers from the only draw­back, which is dis­play­ing ads.

Conclusion

Once again, we remind you that you need to hur­ry when restor­ing data. Road every minute! You should also under­stand that no one guar­an­tees you a 100% return of delet­ed doc­u­ments or media data. It is pos­si­ble that some mem­o­ry seg­ments have already been over­writ­ten. In this case, there is noth­ing to be done — it remains only to accept.