Recover deleted photos and videos from an SD card or USB stick

When you delete a photo or quick-format a card, the pictures usually aren’t gone. Only the list of where they are is cleared. Until new files land on top, the content is still there to be found.

By Jishnu Mahanta · Updated 2026-10-18

In short

Stop using the card or stick right away. Then run Retrova’s Deep scan on it, choose the types you want (photos, videos, documents), save the finds to a different drive, and check them.

First: stop using it

Every photo you take or file you copy onto the card can land on top of what you’re trying to recover. Take it out of the camera or phone and don’t format it again.

How Deep scan finds deleted files

Deep scan reads the raw card from start to end, looking for the start of known file types and checking their internal structure, so it doesn’t mistake random data for a picture. It recognises 47 file types, including:

Photos: JPEG, HEIC, PNG, GIF, WebP, AVIF, TIFF, and RAW from Canon (CR2, CR3), Nikon (NEF), Sony (ARW) and DNG.
Video: MP4, MOV, M4V, 3GP, AVI, MKV and WebM.
Audio and documents: MP3, M4A, WAV, FLAC, PDF, Word, Excel, PowerPoint, and more.

Step by step

Insert the card with a card reader and open Retrova. Choose I deleted something.
Pick the card and the file types you want. Fewer types means a faster scan.
Choose a destination on a different drive, such as your Mac’s or PC’s internal disk.
Run the scan. Finds are saved as they’re discovered and sorted by type. You can stop and resume.
Look through the results. Open a few photos and play a few videos to check them.

What to expect

Names and folders are usually lost. Deep scan finds content, not the file list, so files come back with new names, grouped by type.
Recent deletions recover best. The less the card was used afterwards, the more comes back.
Long videos can come back incomplete if the card stored them in scattered pieces.
If the card was only quick-formatted, its file system may still be readable too. Try opening it with A drive won’t open first to get original names back.

Get Retrova

Free and open source for macOS 11+ and Windows 10/11. No account, no recovery limit, and it never writes to the drive you’re rescuing.

Download RetrovaFree for Mac and Windows

Questions

Can I recover photos after formatting an SD card?

Often, yes. A quick format clears the file list, not the photos. Stop using the card and run Deep scan. A full or secure erase that overwrote the card can’t be undone.

Does it work with phone storage?

Retrova works with drives your computer can attach as a disk: SD and microSD cards, USB sticks and external drives. Phones that connect over MTP or as an iPhone can’t be scanned this way.

Why don’t my recovered files have their original names?

Deep scan finds files by their content, not through the deleted file list, so names and folders usually can’t be recovered. Retrova sorts the finds by type to make them easy to go through.