Do Not Open Downloaded Files On Android

One of the reasons for losing photos on Android is the error of transferring from memory to an SD card, hard drive, or “cloud”. If you copy the data incorrectly, you risk losing everything that has been stored on the phone for years.

This symptom is much easier to prevent than to “cure” (say, restoring files from internal memory is far from always possible even for specialists).

I have compiled this file transfer guide to answer a series of repetitive questions from readers. What measures should be taken when transferring files, and is there a chance to return “undocumented”, damaged photos back? Read the text carefully. and find out.

What you need to know when starting to copy files on your phone

In this part, I have gathered those points that are important when copying files. Following simple rules, you will insure yourself against losing files. photos,s, documents.

Make sure files are copied and not corrupted.

I took this item to the first place, because this is the most popular reason for losing photos. I will describe the sad situation: you copy files, forget about them, then after a while open the folder. but it’s empty, there are no files on the phone, nor on the computer or sd card.

To avoid disaster, I advise you to do this:

1. Copy files to the recipient through the file manager
2. Make sure that all files are copied completely (you need to open them in any viewer, checking their integrity)
3. Feel free to delete files from the source. you no longer need them

Avoid “cutting out” files, because in doing so you delete the copy from the source. If there are damaged or photo files, you will not be able to repeat the copy!

Back up important files in the cloud

Before transferring photos or other data from the internal memory to an SD card or computer, it is highly advisable to copy the files to “cloud”. Among the cloud services, one can distinguish Dropbox and Google Drive tested by time, as well as the Google Photo application (and the service of the same name). Generally speaking, you need to synchronize photos on the Internet regularly, and not once.

However, there is a flip side to the coin: personal information may leak when your account is hacked into the cloud. Therefore, we do not recommend storing information there that could compromise you: intimate photos, credit card information, passwords, etc.

Do not interrupt the copy process

The main scourge during the transfer. abrupt copy interruption. For example, if you copied a photo from Android memory to an sd card and at that time the battery ran out or the file manager closed, there is a risk that some of the data will be copied only partially. And this is not a joke, as many readers describe this scenario (see questions after the article). So what should be observed?

1. Do not interrupt copying, even if you decide that you selected the wrong files
2. Make sure the battery is charged and enough to copy data from the phone
3. Check if there is enough space on the recipient. If you have accumulated gigabytes of and photo, the same amount of free space should be on the recipient. Although, most likely, the system will issue a warning that there is not enough space, there are situations when this does not happen automatically.

Do not store files in internal memory

Almost any Android application (camera, editor) allows you to choose a file storage location. Change it from internal memory to sd card. If this is not possible, look for an alternative to this program.

Storing files on a separate card has the advantages of:

1. storage space (1 GB per microsd cost less than an equivalent replacement for the phone’s internal memory)
2. There is much more chance of recovering data on an sd card than on a phone
3. No need to regularly transfer files back and forth to clear memory

Recovery after failed copy

The second part of the guide on how to actually return files back if you lost them during the copy process.

After the photo is lost, do not copy the new information to the free space

If you cannot find the copied files, check the source from where you copied. If they are not there, leave everything as it is, now all that remains is to try to restore the files.

If you start to write new data to the internal memory, you will significantly reduce the chances of returning anything. If possible, do not open applications on the phone. since they can copy files without your knowledge, change the file structure. All that remains to be done. scan memory in its current state using special programs (read about them later).

Recovering a photo from internal memory is difficult (but possible)

Unfortunately, there is still no easy way to recover photos and other files from internal memory. The difficulty is that you cannot search for files in the phone’s memory through a computer, because the disk does not appear as a separate file volume.

In total, there are two ways to advise:

1. Recovery applications installed on the phone. In fact, this is one free program. DiskDigger for Android. It scans some parts of the internal memory where files may be located. This approach has several disadvantages. Main. the program will not find most files and is limited in the search range.
2. complicated recovery method from internal memory. Create a snapshot of internal memory. Such a picture can be connected to a computer as a separate disk and scanned through recovery programs on a PC.

If the photos are damaged, try “anew” restore them

If you checked the photo and found that some of them didn’t open, it contains artifacts, black areas or only a thumbnail opens. alas, you can’t fix these photos, you can delete them. In this case, you can advise the previous step. that is, restoration of the original images from the source.

In which folder are the Gallery photos stored?

If you have lost photos from the Gallery, it means that they were deleted from the DCIM / Camera folder. on a microsd memory card or in the internal. You need to look for them there.

Is the quality of the photo lost when transferring from one source to another?

Not. If you copy a file, its full copy is saved, byte to byte. Another thing is that you can damage the photo, for example, if you suddenly interrupt the process or as a result of an unexpected error. As a rule, a partially saved photo contains artifacts, that is, distortions. These may be black or gray areas.

Questions and answers

I was faced with the problem of moving photos ands from the phone’s memory to the SD card. When moving files, it says that “unable to execute, files already exist”. But they are in the phone’s memory. He writes that the memory is full. I could accidentally delete some program for this action, as I constantly clear the phone’s memory to increase it.

Answer. Try copying files to a computer and already through a computer to a memory card. Perhaps folders or photos with the same name already exist, it is easy to verify this by opening the folder into which you are trying to copy files.

By the way, you do not have to clean the internal memory every time, just set up your camera or other applications so that they save photos ands directly to the card.

Transferred all the photos from the phone to a USB flash drive. As a result, all the files moved, but instead of the photo, at first there was an image of a damaged image, and then just disappeared somewhere. I searched the entire phone, and tried it through the computer, and downloaded the programs for recovering deleted photos. I just can’t find them. Where can they be stored and how to recover?

Answer. If you took photos through the standard Camera application, then your photos are stored in the DCIM / Camera folder, look for them there. With standard programs you won’t find the photos you take, you need those that scan the internal memory like DiskDigger.

1) The fact is that my mom lost some photos on the phone (asus zenfhone 2). I connected her phone via a usb cable to a laptop. When I went in I looked that there are photos, but for some reason I do not see them on the phone. I transferred them to a laptop and then back to the phone and, of course, all the quality was lost. What to do?

2) When moving music, for example, from the phone’s memory to a memory card in a folder, is the quality lost? And if I moved several races because I could not figure out the folders in my phone, I have Android.

Answer. When transferring, image quality cannot deteriorate. Most likely, you copied not full images, but sketches, which are really worse in quality (more precisely, in resolution).

I bought a sit card and now, I moved all the pictures there, but after that they disappeared. I went to the service center, they say “they did the wrong move” and they cannot be restored. But I think that you can help!

Answer. Images can still be stored in the phone’s internal memory. Take a picture of the memory card, connect the disk to the file system and try using PhotoRec or Recuva to find the files by specifying the graphic format in the filter. Any program for recovering photos on a computer is suitable.

1) I wanted to transfer files to another folder on my phone, I cut out files through a computer, moved to the desired folder, clicked paste, but the files didn’t appear and there weren’t any in the initial folder either

2) Recently deleted files when moving from phone to computer. The move, apparently, went wrong and the process did not start, and when canceled, the moved files were deleted from the phone and they are not in the Recycle Bin either.

3) I have Android 6, a LEAGOO M8 phone. I marked the pictures, then clicked Move and Paste, and now I can’t find these pictures. I looked through all the folders. It is possible to return them and where to look for them?

4) I wanted to free up the PHONE memory, went to the file manager, in the section “Images”, there was all the data of my images, includings, screenshots, photos and more. Having checked all the pictures in the manager, I deleted them! Not only from the manager, but also from the phone itself. I do not know what to do.

Answer. Your mistake is that you transferred the photo (the Cut command), and did not copy them. Therefore, as a result of the failure, a copy of the files was not saved at the source. You need to search for deleted files in the internal memory of the mobile device. first of all, in the DCIM / Camera folder. on the memory card (microsd) or in the phone’s internal memory.

I tried to transfer photos from the phone to the sd card. The operation was performed through a stationary computer by connecting a device to it via a USB port. Some time ago I encountered such a problem, but since I managed to make a copy of the files, I did not attach any importance to this. Now, after some time, I again encountered this problem, I did not manage to save the photo in advance. I tried to restore the latest files from a flash drive (sd). there are no these photos. It seems that they are stuck somewhere, or else they remained on the phone, but now they are not visible. I tried a bunch of programs in two days. to no avail. Now I’m suffering with PhotoRec, there is no result either. I can’t understand how to choose the device’s memory for scanning, only the disks offer.

Answer. You well formulated the question and partially tried to restore the photos. The main task, as you say, is to connect the internal memory as a separate disk so that programs like PhotoRec can work with it like a memory card. It is possible, but the procedure is quite complicated.

Missing photos ands from the gallery. He wanted to free up memory on the phone and transferred it to a memory card, now they are scattered in folders, but they are not in the gallery. I transfer it back to the phone’s memory and still aren’t in the gallery, before files received from Vatsap or downloaded immediately appeared in the gallery, and now they are scattered into folders, very inconvenient.

Answer. In order for the files to be displayed in the Android Gallery, they should be placed in the DCIM / Camera folder. Configure the applications you need (Vatsap, etc.) by specifying this folder for saving.

I have a Samsung j5 on Android. Yesterday I received a message that the device’s memory is full (16 GB). I transferred the photos from the device to the memory card. Today, the phone began to freeze, but there are no photos. Card on 64. Yesterday showed 16, today 6. How to return the photo and what is it with the phone? All day the memory card icon in the upper left corner is on with a request to disable or remove.

Answer. Open the memory card through the computer and check for hidden files on it. You can find all files for a certain date through the search filter in the file manager (when you copied the photo to a memory card).

The space of the memory card can be occupied by large files, they can also be found through the search or the CCleaner mobile application (it will help to clean large files).

If you want to return the previous volume to the memory card, you can format it, making sure that there is nothing important on it. For this, we recommend the SDFormatter application.

I copied the photo from sd to the computer. After some time I stopped copying, correctly completed the work and turned it off. The next day, wanting to continue working, I saw a message: “This device does not support a memory card.” Where I just did not try to install a memory card to copy a photo. all devices see her, but “do not support”, asked to format, but there were very important photos and I do not dare to do it. Trying to reinstall the driver on the card, I deleted it, after which it is not possible to install it again on the card. The card had no mechanical damage.

I ask you to help restore the photo from the sd card.

Photos from the Transcend 128Gb SD card are gone. Phone Asus_Z00LD. Android 6.0.1. Photos were automatically saved to the SD card. When sorting by folders on the SD card, the photos disappeared. New folders into which photos were transferred are not displayed. There are no recent photos in the cloud. I want to restore them. If you try to attach photos to Whatsup, then the disappeared photos are visible, but you can’t attach and send them. Advise how to act in this situation?

My device does not see an sd card. neither a phone, nor a laptop. I took the sd card to the phone repair, the master said that it was burned out because no device could see it. Everything remains on the sd card. photos ands. Can I somehow restore them? Or, if the card burned out, is it impossible?

Used MIUI Explorer to transfer files from the phone to the memory card (by mistake I immediately used “cut out”) Transferring a folder with screenshots (3.5GB) entailed not only a complete reset of the creation date of all files, but also shuffled almost all the files in random order (apparently, the Explorer is now transferring time, and at the same time the gallery is considered as the creation date, and how it I transferred most of the files in random order from one folder, while preserving the entire chronology to another, where the files and weights are not much less. it’s a mystery to me, however, I guess this is already a flaw in the system utility.) The same nonsense happened with the browser download folder. But, it’s funny that everything is fine with the folder of downloads and photos from the camera.

Is it possible to return everything to its previous state? For example, through the same data recovery program, which, perhaps, can restore screenshots in the correct chain (well, if it can return to the previous creation date).

I bought a micro SD flash drive. I decided to transfer the photo from the phone to the USB flash drive. Everything was transferred, but the photos do not open (Android writes ” format not supported” and in the properties it writes a resolution of 1 × 1). Still, not all photos were transferred, although the transfer was successful.

Transferred the sd card to another phone. Then I looked. there are no these photos on the new phone, I wanted to transfer the photos to the computer from the phone in which the SD card was before, but I did not find the photos anywhere. I rearranged the sd card into the old phone. there’s nothing anyway. We looked through the application on the computer. there is nothing on the sd card. Started to search all the folders in the internal memory. Nothing. I don’t know what to do, and the master in the city is not normal.

I uploaded photos from my computer to an old memory card, which I had previously tried to format, but failed. Sat and deleted files manually. After that I uploaded the photos and inserted the memory card into the phone. But there were no new photos at all. Only old files. What to do?

I transferred everything from the internal memory to the SD card via the PC, then I took it out as it should with USB and found that everything from the SD card was gone, deleted. Through the DiskDigger program, you can only restore deleted photos that I previously deleted, unnecessary. Please help return the contents of the sd card!

The phone has an sd card, but somehow it turned out to be empty. I could not format it. The only thing that dropped the phone a couple of times. Help restore the photo on the sd card (photo of the son from the hospital itself). There are none of them in the Android Gallery either.

There is a memory card on the camera, it contains all the captured photos, but when you connect it to the computer, it says that the sd card or file is damaged and reading is impossible. Is there anything you can do? It contains important photos that need to be dropped on a PC.