Mac Undelete Photos - How to Recover Deleted Photos on Mac Free or Paid

It's painful to lose pictures on Mac; these pictures are the precious memories of your family and friends. Fortunately, you still get the chance to recover deleted photos on Mac. Before starting your retrieval work, please follow the precautions below to increase your chances of finding accidentally deleted items.

• ⛔ To avoid overwriting the lost picture, please stop using your Mac/drives and try not to save any new files.
• ⚙️ To avoid the recently deleted photo being completely erased or destroying its properties and causing it to disappear permanently, please don't use any optimization program to improve macOS or hard disk performance.
• 💻 Also, don't use Command Line to try to retrieve deleted photos on Mac. It can only list the deleted items for you to put in the trash bin. It performs operations in the form of instructions. Any of your wrong commands may also cause other data loss.

No matter what the reason for your photo loss is. Don't worry. Here are six ways to get back deleted photos from Mac and recover even permanently deleted photos on Mac. Choose the right way that works in your situation.

How to Restore Recently Deleted Pictures on Mac without Software

1. Check the Trash

If you deleted a photo from your Mac desktop or folders or dragged it directly to the trash can, you can check whether the pictures are in the trash can. All deleted items on Mac are put into the trash can for 30 days before permanently removing them. Before that, you can get back the deleted photos.

1. Click on the trash can icon at the bottom right of the desktop to open it.
2. View all the items in the trash can. Or, if you have remembered the photos' names, you can type in the name in the search box on the right top of the Mac.
3. Select the photos you want to recover to Mac and right-click, selecting "Put Back." All the recovered files are put into the original folder(s). You can find them there.

2. From Photos App

If you've deleted shots from Photos App, they're most likely in the "Recently Delete" album. It gives you a 30-day grace period in case you regret the deleting. Here are the steps to recover deleted photos from library on Mac.

1. Launch this app and click to open the "Recently Deleted" album in the left panel.
2. Find and preview the photos you need to recover. Select the target photos and click "Recover." They will return to the original folder(s) before the deletion.

3. From Time Machine

If you have the habit of backing up your Mac, you're lucky when facing photos deleted or lost from your Mac because the backups contain them. Time Machine is the default backup tool on macOS. Many people have used it to back up important data in case of a computer crash or data loss. You can recover deleted photos on Mac with the backup file if you have the backup.

1. Connect the USB drive you used to back up with your Mac.
2. Navigate to the deleted photos folder.
3. Click the Time Machine icon on the top left menu and select "Enter Time Machine."
4. Please scroll down to look for the target photos with the timeline until you find them.
5. Select the item you want to recover from Mac and click "Restore."

4. Use iCloud

If you have enabled iCloud on your Mac, then the photos might also be uploaded to cloud storage. After deleting a picture, you can still go to iCloud to check whether it is in the "Recently Deleted" folder or not. If it is there, then you can resave it.

1. Open icloud.com on your Mac web browser.
2. Log in with your Apple ID.
3. Go to Photos > Recently Deleted album in the sidebar.
4. Select the pictures you need and click Recover to put them back.

How to Recover Permanently Deleted Photos on Mac with Software

1. Use Data Recovery Software

Accidentally deleted an essential picture from Mac due to emptying trash or using the "Command + Del" key? At this point, It will disappear immediately. Most people think it will be lost forever. However, it is not. The macOS only marked it as a useless file and hid it. So, this doesn't mean it is destroyed, and you still have a chance to recover permanently deleted photos from MacBook Pro, MacBook Air, and more.

At this time, you can use recovery software to help you. And iBeesoft Data Recovery for Mac is one of them you can entirely depend on. It is developed specially for Mac users to recover deleted files on Mac. With this free tool, you no longer need to ask for help from a local data recovery service. It makes the undelete photos process relatively straightforward.

Steps To Recover Deleted Photos on Mac Free:

1. Download the Unerase for Mac. Double-click the .dmg installation package and drag it to the APP folder on your Mac. It is virus free. If you have any problem installing it on your Mac, you should ensure you have enabled the System Preferences to install apps from both Apple App Store and identified developers.
2. Launch this program, and you will see all supported file types selected. You can go ahead by clicking "Start" or only keep the "Pictures" fixed. Doing this will shorten the whole scanning time.
3. All hard disks or external storage devices will be displayed in this window. You need to select the hard drive where the original photos were deleted and click the "Scan" button, letting this software extract the deleted photos.
4. After then, you can see the software find pictures for you. Click the "Type" and "Graphics" category names on the left side of the window to unfold them. After then, you can see the found photos on the right side. Select the target one(s) and click "Recover" to select a new location to save the recovered images on Mac.

2. Use a File Recovery Service

Another most authentic and guaranteed photo recovery on Mac option is to send your computer to any professional data recovery service center. They recover data from any storage device using three photo video recovery methods. Additionally, everything is provided by these professional platforms, from repairing physically damaged and corrupt devices to software recovery.

How to Effectively Keep Your Photos Safe on Mac

While has many ways to recover deleted photos on Mac, they are only a last resort. How to effectively avoid such a disaster is what we need to do. Therefore, you can also follow the methods below to keep your photos safe.

• ⏰ Automatic regular backup of your photos. The best practice is to back them up to at least 2 locations (internal disks, external storage, or cloud storage).
• 🚀 Regularly clean up your Mac's junk and cache files to prevent OS/App crashes when transferring photos.
• 📷 If you find similar images, don't use Command + Del to remove them. It can effectively avoid accidental deletion and a chance of undelete photos on Mac.
• 📋 Before emptying the trash, double-check that you don't need them.

How to Repair Corrupted Pictures on Mac

Have you ever encountered pictures not viewable on Mac? If you encounter such problems, then you can try the methods below to fix them.

• 🖐️ Manually modify the image format: Due to compatibility issues, you can try to modify the pictures format to jpeg or png.
• 🗂️ Repair Gallery: Holding down the Option and Command keys when launching Photos will open a dialog. At this time, you can follow the wizard to complete the repair.
• 🛠️ Use 3rd party tools: Online Tools - Adobe Photoshop Express and Online Office Recovery Tool, Software - Stellar Repair for Photo, and SysInfoTools Image Repair.

Summary

Whenever you remove photos on your Mac accidently and want to retrieve them, you should first go to the Trash can, iCloud/iPhoto "Recently Deleted," checking whether they are there and you can restore them. If not, check whether you have a backup file or not. And if all the ways mentioned above are not workable, then the last resort is asking data recovery software or service for help. It is the most efficient way to recover permanently deleted photos on Mac.

Frequently Asked Questions (FAQs)