Oh no, accidentally deleted videos are the worst! There are definitely a few ways you can try to recover those important videos without having to spend anything. Let’s break it down.
First off, don’t save, move, or download anything new on the device where those videos were stored. When a file is deleted, the actual data isn’t immediately wiped out. Instead, the system marks the storage space that was taken up by the file as available for new data. Any new data written could overwrite your deleted videos, making recovery much more difficult or even impossible.
Now, for the tools you can use. There are several online tools and software that could help with video recovery:
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Recuva: While Recuva isn’t an online tool per se, it’s a free download and can recover videos from your device. It’s a well-known tool developed by the makers of CCleaner. You can use it to scan your storage device and it’ll show a list of recoverable files. It works well with a variety of file systems like FAT, exFAT, and NTFS.
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Clever Online Video Repair: This is an actual online tool where you don’t need to download any additional software. It’s particularly good for video files that might have gotten corrupted or haven’t been fully deleted yet. You can check it out at Free Online Video Repair Tool. It’s user-friendly and allows for the repair and recovery of videos, especially if they were only partially damaged. You just upload your file, and it works its magic.
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Disk Drill: Another good one from CleverFiles, but you’ll need to download it. Disk Drill is pretty robust and handles a wide range of file recovery needs but this too isn’t entirely online. It’s straightforward to use and has free recovery capability for up to 500MB of data.
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PhotoRec: Despite the name, PhotoRec can recover videos too. It’s a bit more technical to use as it doesn’t have the most user-friendly interface, but it’s powerful and free. It works by ignoring the file system and going directly after the underlying data, so it can be quite effective.
Now, there’s also the question of cloud backups. If you have a backup service like Google Photos, iCloud, or OneDrive, they might retain your videos even after they’ve been deleted from your local device. This depends on your synchronization settings – sometimes deleted files are retained in a trash or recent deletes folder which can be restored easily.
For mobile devices, apps like Dumpster or DiskDigger (for Android) can sometimes recover deleted videos if they were installed before the deletion happened. iOS devices, on the other hand, have a “Recently Deleted” folder in the Photos app where deleted videos can be restored within 30 days.
Lastly, a word of caution. While many of these tools work well, sometimes data recovery can be a bit hit or miss. It often depends on how much time has passed since the deletion, how the storage media has been used since, and whether there was any corruption present. Always back up important videos in multiple locations if possible, including external drives and cloud storage for future safety.
Hope this helps and you get your videos back!