Restore Image: Photo Recovery

Restore Image: Photo Recovery is an independent Android app for photo recovery and data recovery. It looks for deleted, hidden and lost photos, videos, audio and files that are still stored on your Android phone or SD card, lets you preview every result, and restores to your gallery only the items you choose — without root.

Deleted a photo by mistake, or cleaned the wrong folder? Many files that the gallery reports as deleted are still physically on the device: in the system trash, in hidden or .nomedia folders, in app caches and thumbnail directories, or simply missing from the gallery index rather than missing from storage. The app scans those places and brings back what you select.

What the app does

The developer describes four recovery groups:

• Photo recovery — JPG, PNG, HEIC, WEBP, GIF and RAW images.
• Video recovery — MP4, MOV, 3GP, MKV and WEBM clips.
• Audio recovery — MP3, M4A, WAV, OGG and voice notes.
• File recovery — PDF, DOC, ZIP, APK and other documents.

The workflow has three stages. Scan: a quick scan checks your media library and the system trash in seconds, while a deep scan also searches hidden folders, caches and renamed files using file-signature detection. Preview: open any photo or video before restoring it and check its size, date, resolution and original folder. Restore: recovered photos go to Pictures/Restored Images, with videos, audio and documents getting their own folders, or trashed items can be moved straight back to where they were.

Restoring from the Android trash

On Android 11 and newer, photos and videos removed from the gallery usually stay in the system trash for up to 30 days. The app lists those items with a Trash badge so you can restore them before they expire, using Android's own secure restore dialog.

Other features listed by the developer

• Photo, video and file recovery without root.
• Filters for hidden, trash, cache and large files, plus sorting by date, size or name.
• Batch select to restore many files at once.
• A Recovered tab to open, share or delete what you brought back.
• Works offline: the developer states that nothing is uploaded and scanning happens only on your device.
• Light and dark theme with a Material Design interface.

What it does not do

This is not a forensic tool, and recovery is not guaranteed. It can only recover files that still exist somewhere on your storage. It cannot recover data that has been fully overwritten, files wiped by a factory reset, or content on encrypted or damaged storage. Results vary by device, Android version and how long ago the file was deleted — the sooner you scan, the better your chances. It does not require root, and it is not a cloud service: it does not promise to retrieve anything that is no longer on the phone or card.

Permissions and Premium

Access to photos and videos, and to music and audio, is required so the app can scan your media library and the system trash; the developer notes that the Android photo picker is not sufficient, because the app has to search everything, including trashed and hidden items. Optional folder access lets you point a deep scan at one folder only. The developer states that nothing leaves your phone.

Without Premium you can restore up to 5 files in total. Premium is a one-time purchase that unlocks unlimited restores and removes all ads: no subscription and no recurring charges. The free version shows ads, and in-app purchases are offered.

Restore Image: Photo Recovery is an independent app published by ZonjaxebDevs and is not affiliated with Google, with any phone manufacturer, or with any gallery or cloud-storage service whose folders it may scan. Treat every scan result as a possibility rather than a promise: no app can recover a file whose storage area has already been reused, so stop saving new photos, videos and downloads to the affected storage and scan as early as you can. For device details, the current listing, the permissions it declares and the in-app purchase terms, check the Google Play page before installing.