How to Recover Deleted Photos From Canon Camera SD Card

Accidentally deleted photos from your Canon camera? Such an instance often causes panic in us. You suddenly remember the memories, and might feel overwhelmed. It’s frustrating and heartbreaking, especially when the photos were very special to you. 

But don’t worry. We have some good news for you. Photos from the Canon camera are never permanently deleted. Whether you deleted them accidentally, lost them due to an SD card error, or they got corrupted without any warning. You can get those lost photos back. 

When you delete them, they do not instantly disappear. Just the space gets marked as free space. But you have to act quickly; if that space gets replaced or refilled, then you may never get those photos back. 

Without wasting a second, go through this guide that shares how to recover deleted photos from a Canon camera SD card step by step with images. 

Key Takeaway 

• You can recover your deleted photos until the free space is not overwritten by some other photo. 
• For advanced planning, always keep a backup or a copy of your photos on another drive. 
• Cloud backups such as Google Photos and other Canon apps may store deleted photos for 30 days. 
• In case of physical damage to the SD card, professional recovery services are the last option.
  

Can You Retrieve Deleted Photos from a Canon Camera?

Yes, in most cases you can recover your lost photos. But it also depends on several other factors. When you delete pictures from an SD card, the files are not wiped immediately. Instead, the system marks their space as available for new data. 

Until new photos or videos overwrite that space, recovery software can usually restore deleted pictures. It’s best to take action now, before it gets too late. Once the free space is replaced by some new photo or object, it will be very hard to recover it. 

How to Recover Deleted Photos from Canon Camera SD Card

For this guide, we’ll demonstrate the recovery process using Disk Drill, since it is one of the best photo recovery software available today. This is one of the most popular recovery tools for photos. Whether it’s from a professional or a common camera, it works best in all. It supports Canon’s RAW formats (CR2 and CR3), legacy CRW, as well as JPEG, HEIF, and even large video files like MP4 or MOV. This broad compatibility makes it especially valuable for photographers who work with a mix of formats.

Interesting Fact 
Many of the modern Canon cameras store photos in raw formats, which makes it easy for recovery tools to restore them.  

What makes users prefer it is its intuitive UI that guides users through the process without unnecessary complexity. The preview function is another strong advantage: you can view recoverable photos of any format, as long as your system has a suitable viewer installed. This allows you to confirm the quality and relevance of files before recovery, which saves both time and storage space.

Here is how to recover deleted photos from a memory card:

1. Download and install Disk Drill from the official website.
2. Connect your Canon SD card using a card reader.
3. Launch Disk Drill and select the SD card from the device list. 
4. Click Search for lost data.

5. Select Universal Scan. 

6. Once the scan completes, click Review found items or Pictures and preview your photos.

7. Mark the files you want to restore and press Recover. On Windows, Disk Drill allows you to recover up to 100MB for free, which is usually enough to recover quite a few of your photos. 

8. Choose a safe location on a different drive to store your recovered photos.

With these steps, most Canon users can bring back lost photos quickly without any technical knowledge.

Wrapping Up

On a final note, we want to mention a couple of additional options that can sometimes save the day. 

Some Canon apps and connected cloud accounts can serve as a backup lifeline. For example, Canon’s cloud storage and services like Google Drive often keep deleted files in a trash folder for up to 30 days, which makes recovery simple if you act quickly. Canon Image and Google Photos are worth checking if you have sync enabled.

As an alternative, professional data recovery services exist for cases where your SD card has physical damage or isn’t even detected by your computer. These labs use specialized equipment and may succeed where software cannot, but costs can be high. That’s why we recommend first trying DIY recovery tools; most Canon SD card issues can be handled at home without much difficulty.

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