Your heart stops, and your stomach sinks. Your blood runs cold. You can’t catch your breath. It’s a combination of panic and disbelief. If you’ve ever lost your digital files, this is a familiar feeling.

Maybe you’ve deleted photos by accident. Or perhaps some files have simply disappeared. No matter how it happens, it’s heartbreaking.

The story doesn’t need to have a sad and sorry ending, though. There are now many different brands of photo recovery software that can save the day. With the click of a few buttons, you can recover lost photos and deleted files.

What is the Best Free Photo Recovery Software?

The best free photo recovery software allows you to recover lost or deleted files without having to pay or subscribe. 

We all know the feeling of losing files or deleting images by mistake. It’s brutal. But these stories don’t always have to have sad endings. In fact, you have several options for recovering your lost photos without having to pay a fortune. 

All the software options on this list offer some data recovery for free. Some are more advanced than others, and some only allow you to recover a certain amount of data before you have to pay. But still, you have plenty of free options. 

However, free photo recovery software is often limited. There are sometimes limits on how much data you can recover for free. Others can only recover certain file types and have much slower recovery times. 

That’s why we recommend these free options for occasional, small-scale recovery operations. If photo recovery is a large part of your workflow, we recommend you sign up to one of the paid programs for better service and more options. 

Here’s a quick rundown of all the best free photo recovery software options. 

Best Free Photo Recovery Software

Now we look at each software suite in more detail. 

EaseUS Data Recovery Wizard is a photo recovery software that can help you restore up to 1000 file formats. It retrieves deleted, formatted, or lost photos from Windows and Mac devices.

That includes computer hard drives and removable devices. This user-friendly tool comes with a data recovery wizard. This feature helps you get your files back quickly in only a few steps.

EaseUS Data Recovery Wizard can help you recover up to 2 GB of data for free. The software offers its Pro version if you need to restore more data.

This recovery software enables you to filter the scanned files by file type. Also, you can preview them before restoring the lost data.

EaseUS Data Recovery Wizard can help you restore deleted photos with their original data. Lost data includes their file names, file paths, and creation dates. This works on SD cards and USB flash drives.

This free photo recovery software is also available for Android and iOS devices through your PC or Mac.

Download: Windows | MacOS | Android | Windows/Mac for iOS

Stellar is one of the best photo recovery software for Windows and Mac users. It helps you retrieve deleted files from solid-state drives, USBs, and hard drives. It is compatible with Windows 11, 10, 8.1, 8, and 7, as well as with M1, M2, and T2 chip-enabled Macs.

This tool can help you retrieve deleted photos, emails, audio, videos, and more. It can recover up to 1GB of deleted files. And it can help you to recover files from an encrypted drive or crashed system.

Stellar comes with a user-friendly interface. The program also comes with interactive options that make the recovery process smoother.

You can select various views to display the scanned files. And you can add file headers to the list of supported file types or search for specific folders.

You can test it out to see how it works for free. But you do need to pay to actually recover files.

Stellar Photo Recovery‘s paid version offers support and a 30-day guarantee. So you can give the full version a try and see if you need the extra options.

Read our full review of Stellar Photo Recovery.

Wise Data Recovery is another sound, free photo recovery software for Windows and macOS platforms. It helps you restore your files from accidental and permanent deletion.

This recovery software allows you to filter the type of file lost before scanning. You can recover deleted photos, videos, documents, emails, and other file formats.

This tool supports data recovery from hard-drive disks and external hard disks. It also works with memory cards, digital cameras, USB drives, or other storage devices.

Wise data recovery comes with a portable version that helps you recover files without installation!

Download: Windows | MacOS

MiniTool is photo recovery software available for both Windows and Mac. They’ve recently updated the app with a brand-new interface. It’s now super easy to navigate.

If you’ve lost photos, this image recovery software can recover files lost due to various causes. If you’ve accidentally deleted photos, or if they’ve been lost to a virus attack, MiniTool can get them back.

It can recover deleted photos from external storage devices like USB sticks and hard drives. And it will recover most multimedia files.

MiniTool has a free version, but this is essentially a trial. To get the best photo recovery from MiniTool, you have to upgrade to the paid version.

IObit Undelete is one of the best photo recovery software for Windows users. It helps you recover deleted photos, videos, documents, and music with only a few clicks.

This data recovery software allows you to search for deleted files with name, extension, and size. Then, it scans the device and recovers them with ease.

IObit Undelete performs a “deep scan” to recover deleted files. The scan helps retrieve files even if they have been lost for years.

Also, IObit Undelete evaluates the status of the files before recovery. This tool lets you find out whether you can restore the file or if it’s been overwritten.

We recommend this data recovery program if you want an easy-to-use interface.

Download: Windows

Disk Drill Photo Recovery by CleverFiles is an excellent photo recovery software for those who value not just their photos but also their time and money.

Designed with both Windows and Mac users in mind, Disk Drill can recover around 100 photo, image, and graphic file formats (plus hundreds of video, audio, document, archive, and other file formats).

It shines when it comes to RAW photo recovery, offering flawless support for formats like CR2, CR3, CRW, DNG, ERF, GPR, KDC, NEF, PEF, RAF, and much more.

The software’s versatility extends to various storage devices commonly used in photography, such as SD, microSD, and CF cards, and Disk Drill is also proficient in recovering images directly from digital cameras and other devices from renowned brands like Canon, Nikon, and GoPro.

A formatted or corrupted file system (be it FAT, FAT32, exFAT, NTFS, EXT2/3/4, or HFS+ and APFS) doesn’t stop Disk Drill from retrieving lost photos. Best of all, the recovery process is always a matter of a few simple clicks, regardless of how complex the data loss problem is.

Included with Disk Drill is a sizable collection of extra data management and data protection tools that can help you keep your photos organized and safeguarded against future incidents.

All of these powerful features come with a one-time purchase of the Pro license. This model benefits users who prefer a straightforward, cost-effective solution without worrying about recurring subscription fees.

Download: Windows | MacOS

PC Inspector File Recovery is a freeware recovery program. It helps you to retrieve deleted files or partitions from Windows devices. It supports over 25 file formats, including HTML, JPEG, MP3, and ZIP.

This free photo recovery software comes in seven languages. It also offers a step-by-step guide to recover photos and files in seconds.

PC Inspector File Recovery will help you save your hard disk from a system crash. Plus, it is helpful in case of a virus or hardware failure.

This software can recover your files with their original date and time data. And this program is entirely free. All features are available without a license.

Download: Windows

iBoysoft Data Recovery Free is a recovery software for Windows and macOS. It enables you to retrieve lost data from a hard drive disk, SD card, memory card, USB drive, or PC.

This data recovery tool can restore over 1000 file formats and types. Some are photos, office files, videos, audio, emails, and more.

The software helps restore lost data due to a virus attack, system crash, or lost partition. It also works if you don’t know why the data got lost or deleted.

This photo recovery software allows you to restore up to 1GB of data in three steps:

Select a recovery mode. Choose the drive to start scanning. Review and recover your deleted files by clicking the Recover button.

The software’s free version enables you to select a location with ease. It allows you to preview the deleted files before restoring them. Plus, it comes with deep and quick scan options for different situations and needs.

Download: Windows | MacOS

Puran File Recovery is an excellent recovery software for windows. It can help you quickly recover lost photos, files, and partitions.

The program supports hard disks, memory cards, formatted disks, and mobile phones. It also works with CDs, DVDs, and any other storage media.

This recovery software comes with a user-friendly interface. It features a robust recovery engine that can retrieve over 50 file formats at high speed.

Puran File Recovery offers three recovery methods:

Quick Scan works by listing deleted files in only a few seconds. Deep Scan can examine a device precisely. It can identify a higher number of deleted and lost files. Full Scan can detect deleted or lost partitions. It is also effective for restoring lost files from formatted devices.

Puran File Recovery helps restore lost files with their path structure intact. This feature will make your life easier as you can organize them just as they were before deletion.

Puran File Recovery also comes with a Maintenance Wizard option. This can help you optimize your computer’s performance. It also offers a Batch Fix feature that keeps your system clean and error-free.

This software is available for Windows users and provides support in many languages.

Download: Windows

7-Data Recovery is a photo recovery tool that helps you retrieve lost data. It is an excellent photo recovery software for Windows users.

The program allows you to restore data up to 1GB. You can retrieve photos, audio, video, emails, and document file formats.

The software is not only able to recover files. It also fixes SD card issues, partition errors, or corrupted files.

It comes with four recovery modes for restoring different types of data. The selected mode depends on how you lost the data:

Deleted Recovery mode retrieves files deleted from the recycle bin. It also works with files permanently deleted from storage. Complete Recovery mode helps restore files from a formatted or corrupted volume. Lost Partition Recovery mode works with deleted partitions in various circumstances. Two examples are crashed hard drives or disk repartitioning. The Digital Media Recovery mode fetches media files like images, music, or videos.

7-Data Recovery supports hard drives, SD cards, cameras, USB drives, and other memory cards. It can restore files from local drives and mobile storage devices.

Download: Windows

Undelete 360 is free and available for Windows users. It is a data recovery tool that enables you to recover your lost files quickly.

It retrieves deleted photos from memory cards, smartphones, and USB drives. It also works with floppy drives and computer hard drives.

This photo recovery software works with an efficient algorithm. It helps you browse, search, and restore files with ease.

Undelete 360 can help you restore photos deleted due to a virus attack, an accident, software failure, or an unexpected system shutdown.

This recovery software allows you to preview the lost files before restoring them. It shows the scanned results in both file type and a folder view.

Also, the program comes with a filter feature. It allows the users to scan specific files instead of the whole device, saving them time.

Download: Windows

Why You Need Photo Recovery Software

If you’re working in the creative industries these days, you’re handling a lot of digital files. Photographers, videographers, and graphic designers. Let’s face it, we’re all at risk of data loss.

Digital technology is unpredictable and hardware can crash at any moment. You can click the wrong button or pull the wrong cable. Or your cat might walk across your keyboard.

No matter how it happens, losing your photos is tragic. You’ve lost time and treasured memories. You could even lose your job.

Accidents happen. That’s a fact of life. But we no longer need to live in fear. There is photo recovery software available that can recover lost data. This software can retrieve deleted photos and lost files.

Conclusion

Photo-recovery software will always be a lifesaver in many situations. It can help you to restore important data that you thought you lost.

If you’re like me, I’m sure you own a device with hundreds of photos from many years ago. If that’s the case, you must have good recovery software to restore your images in case of an accident.

We hope our list helps you find the best free photo recovery software that meets your needs!