Best Photo Recovery Software

Recuva is a Windows file recovery utility originally developed by Piriform and now distributed under the CCleaner brand by Gen Digital. It scans hard drives, USB sticks, memory cards and other media to find and restore deleted photos, documents, videos, music and emails, using either a fast Quick Scan or a more thorough Deep Scan.

The free edition offers unlimited recovery attempts with a moderate success rate, while Recuva Professional adds virtual hard drive support, automatic updates and priority support for a small annual fee. Recuva also includes a secure file deletion tool and works with FAT, exFAT, NTFS and several Linux file systems.

EaseUS Data Recovery Wizard is a data recovery application from EaseUS, a software company founded in 2004. It recovers deleted files, formatted drives and lost partitions from hard disks, SSDs, RAID, NAS, USB drives, SD cards and digital cameras, supporting over 1,000 file formats and 2,000 types of storage devices. Users can choose between quick and deep scans, then preview and filter results before restoring files.

The software can also repair corrupted MP4, MOV, JPEG and JPG files during recovery, and it can boot from a USB or CD/DVD to recover data from a computer that will not start. It is sold as a one-time license, with separate versions for Windows, Windows Server and macOS.

Stellar Photo Recovery is a Windows and Mac application from Stellar Information Technology that restores deleted or lost photos, videos and audio files from memory cards, cameras, drones, external drives, SSDs and internal hard disks up to 18TB. It supports JPEG, RAW, TIFF, PNG, MP4, MOV and many other formats, with file preview during scanning and a pause-and-resume scan feature.

The software is sold in Standard, Professional and Premium editions. Professional adds repair of corrupted or damaged photos, while Premium adds repair of severely corrupted video files. A limited free trial lets users preview recoverable files before purchasing a license.

Disk Drill is a data recovery application from CleverFiles that scans internal drives, external USB drives, SD and CF cards, SSDs, RAID arrays and disk images to reconstruct over 400 file types. It offers Quick Scan, Deep Scan and a combined Universal Scan, and it automatically estimates the likelihood that each found file can be successfully recovered.

Disk Drill also includes free data protection tools such as Recovery Vault, which retains metadata for accidentally deleted files, and byte-level backup imaging. A free version recovers a limited amount of data, while the PRO license unlocks unlimited recovery on both Windows and macOS, and an Enterprise license is available with custom pricing for organizations.

Wondershare Recoverit is a data recovery application from Wondershare, a software company operating for more than 21 years. It recovers documents, photos, audio and video from SSDs, HDDs, external drives, USB drives, SD cards, NAS devices, drones and cameras, claiming a 99.5 percent recovery success rate across more than 1,000 file formats and 2,000 device types.

Beyond recovery, Recoverit can repair corrupted video, photo and document files, and it includes AI-powered photo enhancement. It can create bootable media to recover data from a computer that will not start, and it can pull files from NAS devices without removing the drive. Plans are sold separately for Windows and Mac and typically cover two PCs.

PhotoRec is a free, open-source data recovery utility distributed under the GNU General Public License by CGSecurity, the same team behind the TestDisk partition recovery tool. Rather than relying on a file system's index, PhotoRec ignores the file system entirely and searches storage media directly for known file headers, a technique called data carving, which lets it recover files even from severely damaged or reformatted drives.

It recognizes more than 480 file extensions across roughly 300 file families, including documents, archives, photos and videos, and it always operates in read-only mode on the source media to avoid further damage. PhotoRec runs on Windows, macOS, Linux, BSD and Solaris, though it does not preserve original file names or folder structure.

Remo Recover is a data recovery application from Remo Software, based in Cupertino, California. It recovers deleted or lost files, photos, videos, music and partitions from hard drives, external drives, SSDs, memory cards and USB storage, supporting more than 300 file formats including Office documents, PDFs and RAW camera images from Nikon, Canon and Sony.

The software offers Quick and Deep scan modes, and its dynamic recovery view lets users save found files before a scan finishes. A Recovery Session feature saves scan results so a drive does not need to be rescanned later, and users can teach the software to recognize new file types by supplying a sample file. A free edition allows recovery of up to 1GB of data.

MiniTool Power Data Recovery is a Windows data recovery tool from MiniTool Software Ltd. It offers dedicated recovery modules for undeleted files, damaged partitions, lost partitions, the desktop, the recycle bin and specific folders, addressing data loss from accidental deletion, formatting, drive failure, system crashes and virus attacks. It supports over 2,000 file types across NTFS, FAT and other common file systems.

The software includes file preview, advanced filtering by type, size and date, and a bootable WinPE recovery builder for unbootable systems. It is sold under Personal plans covering one to three PCs and Business plans covering up to 299 PCs and servers, alongside a free edition limited to 1GB of recovery.

Tenorshare 4DDiG is a data recovery application from Tenorshare, a software company with more than 10 years in the market and over 75 million downloads. It recovers more than 2,000 data types from internal drives, external drives, SSDs, memory cards and digital cameras, covering scenarios such as formatting, deletion, system crashes and virus attacks, and it can restore data from BitLocker-encrypted drives.

Beyond recovery, 4DDiG repairs corrupted photos, videos, audio and documents, and includes AI-powered photo and video enhancement, including colorizing black-and-white media. Additional tools include a partition manager and duplicate file deleter. Plans are sold as monthly, annual or lifetime licenses, each covering a set number of PCs, with a 7-day free trial available.

Dr.Fone is a mobile toolkit from Wondershare that bundles data recovery with several other phone management tools for iOS and Android. Its Data Recovery module retrieves deleted photos, messages, contacts, call logs, and more from over 6,000 phone models, while the Full Toolkit adds screen unlock, phone to phone transfer, WhatsApp and other chat app backup and transfer, virtual GPS location, permanent data erasure, iOS and Android system repair, and a password manager.

Individual tools like Data Recovery can be bought separately on monthly, annual, or perpetual plans, or bundled into the Full Toolkit at a higher price covering all modules. A free download is available with limited functionality so users can preview results before purchasing, and Wondershare backs purchases with a 7 day money back guarantee.