How to recover deleted photos on a Samsung Galaxy

Deleted photos can usually be recovered on a Galaxy phone for about a month. You’ll typically find them in the Trash in Samsung Gallery (Recycle bin in older versions), but they could also have been backed up to cloud storage or a computer using Smart Switch. We’ll look in each of these places in the order that’s most likely to get your photos back quickly, and be upfront about cases where there’s nothing to be done.

Where a deleted photo might still be

Do not empty any bins until you have checked all of them, in the following order. Each copy has its own countdown clock (typically 30 days).

Restore photos from Gallery's Trash or Recycle bin

Deleted photos aren’t gone for good straight away. When you delete photos from Gallery, they first move to a folder called Trash (Recycle bin in earlier versions of Samsung’s software and on some of Samsung’s help pages).

According to Samsung UK, items deleted and sent to the Recycle bin will remain there for 30 days before they’re permanently deleted. As of One UI 6, My Files and Voice Recorder use the same Recycle bin, and according to a page on Samsung’s UK website, it can’t be disabled.

1. 1

   Open the bin

   Launch Gallery, open the Menu (bottom of screen) and select Trash.

2. 2

   Select the photos

   Select Edit and tap to highlight the photo(s)/video(s) you want to restore (or select Restore All to restore everything).

3. 3

   Restore them

   Select Restore, and the photo(s)/video(s) will be restored to their original album(s).

If Gallery won’t open, you can reach the shared bin from My Files. On One UI 6, Samsung also added a shortcut to it in Settings > Device care > Storage management (the name could be slightly different on newer versions).

If you enable Sync with Google in Gallery on One UI 9, keep in mind that deleting a synced photo in either Gallery or Google Photos will delete it from both apps. Also, deleting items from the Trash in Gallery will permanently delete the photos from your Google storage, too (per Samsung’s support site for Singapore).

Check the bin in Google Photos

If Google Photos did back up the image before you deleted it, there might be another copy in Google Photos' Bin. To get it back, Samsung UK says to navigate to Collections > Bin > Select > Restore. It's worth noting that while Samsung UK's page still says photos will remain in Google Photos' Bin for 60 days, Google's own help page now says photos will only remain there for 30 days before being permanently deleted (according to 9to5Google, this change happened back in early September 2026).

If it's not showing in the Bin, Samsung UK says it could be because you're logged into a different Google Account than the one you back up photos to. Google's help page for when you can't find photos on Google Photos also recommends checking your Archive and Locked Folder, as well as looking under Collections > On this device.

Photos that disappeared when OneDrive sync ended

As of 30 September 2026, Samsung’s Gallery app on Galaxy devices can no longer sync with OneDrive. If photos vanished from Gallery after that, don’t panic just yet. According to Microsoft’s support page, any photos or videos that you’ve already synced to OneDrive won’t be affected. It’s just that they won’t appear in Gallery anymore. Open the OneDrive app or the website to find them, and see our roundup of One UI 9 camera and Gallery changes for the rest of the switch.

If you delete photos or videos in OneDrive, Microsoft says that you can restore them from the recycle bin within 30 days (personal account) or 93 days (work or school account). To do so, open OneDrive on Android, tap the Me icon (bottom-right corner) > Recycle Bin, and select the file(s) that you want to restore. Tap Restore. Note that you can’t recover files or folders that you’ve deleted from OneDrive’s recycle bin.

Restore from a backup

Your next best option would be to restore from a backup made before the photos were deleted.

Smart Switch backs up everything except email by default, according to Samsung Australia's Smart Switch FAQ. To restore backed-up data to your phone, Samsung UK says all you need to do is connect your phone to your PC or Mac and select Restore in Smart Switch.

If you choose Restore now, the most recent backup will be restored to your phone. Choose Select a different backup to browse and select an older backup.

Samsung doesn't say what happens to data on your phone that was created after the backup was made, so we'd recommend making sure you've saved any important photos and files elsewhere on your computer before restoring.

Samsung Cloud isn’t quite as helpful as the name implies. Samsung Cloud, found under Settings > Accounts and backup on One UI 9, offers Back up data options including contacts, messages and call logs (there’s no option for backing up Gallery, as checked on a Galaxy S25 Ultra running One UI 9 in November 2026, and Samsung Australia’s list of items backed up also doesn’t include photos in Gallery).

Temporary Cloud Backup is the exception, and according to Samsung’s newsroom, photos and videos are included and saved for up to 30 days. You can access Temporary Cloud Backup from Maintenance mode or the Reset menu. This is worth checking if your photos have gone missing after a repair or reset.

Samsung US has confirmed that transferring Secure Folder data via backup no longer works. Restoring Secure Folder from backup also doesn’t work on One UI 8 and above. Smart Switch is Samsung’s route if you’re looking to transfer Secure Folder contents.

Photos you hid, not deleted

Think your photos are gone for good? Galaxy phones have a few nifty features that hide photos instead of deleting them. Here’s where to find them.

• Hidden albums can be shown again from Gallery’s Albums tab. Open More options (the three-dots icon) > Hide albums.
• Turning off Sync with Google hides cloud-only photos from Gallery, Samsung’s Singapore website says. (They’re hidden, not deleted.)
• Images and videos stored in Secure Folder’s own Gallery app, which you open from inside Secure Folder.
• Photos in Google Photos’ Locked Folder and Archive (tap Collections in Google Photos to access both).
• Images and videos stored in the Private album. (Samsung’s Galaxy S26 documentation from its Australian website mentions you can access this album from Gallery’s Menu using your screen lock; Samsung’s Indian website says some phones running One UI 8.5 have this feature.)

Our guide to hiding photos on a Samsung will explain each method and will provide instructions on how to get your photos back out once they’re there.

What can't be recovered, and recovery apps

Google states that photos that have been removed from its Trash are permanently deleted. Microsoft says the same of OneDrive’s recycle bin, and Samsung’s website doesn’t say how to undelete photos either, once they’ve been removed from the Samsung app’s Trash folder or after 30 days. Naturally, photos are also lost when you perform a factory reset on your phone without making a backup first. Google also warns that photos stored in its Locked Folder are deleted if you remove app data or uninstall the app without having backed these photos up elsewhere.

Although third-party undelete apps and software solutions for your computer are highly ranked in search results for undeleting photos on Samsung devices, we can’t recommend any of these as we haven’t tested them. According to the Android Open Source Project, all new phones released with Android 10 or later have file-based encryption turned on and we’re unaware of any independent source that claims data deleted from the internal storage of such recent Samsung phones can be recovered reliably with third-party apps or software. Be aware that rooting your phone may result in losing access to photos and other files stored in Samsung’s Secure Folder, according to Samsung Australia.

Stop it happening again

You can enable automatic syncing in Gallery on One UI 9. According to Samsung’s website for Singapore, go to Gallery > Menu > Settings > Sync photos and videos and enable Sync with Google. If syncing isn’t enabled yet, tapping that option takes you to a Sync your photos and videos screen where you can see the Google account it’ll sync with, enable the Sync with Google option and tap Continue.

By default, only photos and videos in the Camera album will sync to Google Photos, but you can choose to sync with other albums/folders as well. Head to Albums to sync and select the folders you want backed up.

Photos on an SD card won’t be synced. Samsung says the service will make use of Google’s 15GB of free storage in a Google account. See Samsung cloud photo backup for details on setup and storage costs. For a copy you control, back up to a computer now and then with Smart Switch or the methods in our PC transfer guide. The Samsung Gallery guide covers the rest of the app.