Photos completely disappeared

[IhasChezBurga]

So within the past 3 days, all 3000+ photos and videos have completely disappeared from my gallery- I haven't done anything outside the norm on my device that could prompt this result. Even in my OneDrive, which is supposed to be a backup- they're gone. They're in no Recycling Bin on any app. The only photos that I still have are either what I've set as an album cover on Samsung music, what's on my sd card or random recent things- about 20 recent photos are all I have, and it's not all what should be within that time frame too. I'd really love some help cause I have a lot of important photos, like photos of my cats and things that I don't have anymore

[Slizzered]

You do have a recycle bin for your gallery.

Go onto the My Files App, click on photos, then go to the 3 dots at the top right hand of the screen, if you see an orange (N) next to recycle bin, that means you have newly added stuff in there but would be worth having a look through anyway.

To troubleshoot a bit further, whilst on the My Files App, again select the 3 but this time go on 'analyse storage' and tell me how much data you have stored in images/videos according to that.

[IhasChezBurga]

Unfortunately, as I previously stated, there are 0 photos in the recycling bins, on Samsung gallery and also OneDrive, there's nothing. And there's only 94MB of photos, which doesn't sound like 3000+ photos worth of data.

[Slizzered]

Apologies, I thought you meant you couldn't find the recycle bin.

No that definitely isn't right. Have you had any frequent app crashes within the last few days or tried to download any file which could not be opened on your phone? Have you done a malware scan recently?

Also when did you last update your OS? That can also affect the Gallery in random cases. The OS can just glitch out sometimes and stupid things like that can happen.

I'd say not to take any more photos for the time being, as if the photos have just been corrupted for whatever reason then you can recover them, but if you save a new image in the Gallery it will start to overwrite the corrupt images.

Do you have any back-ups you can use?

[nowdeleted]

Is your phone liked to Google photos or Dropbox, as these apps can also be accessed by a pc or tablet.

[IhasChezBurga]

I haven't had any app crashes of any kind, and I haven't downloaded anything, let alone anything that couldn't open normally. I haven't scanned in a while, which I'll do so soon. I update every time there's a recent one, so every time it prompts me about a software update, but the last one was July. I have no backups unfortunately,I was using OneDrive as a sync and have also sent a support request to their team, I just don't know what's happened

[Slizzered]

Like I say, it could have just been an OS glitch - sounds dramatic but it can happen albeit rarely.

Unfortunately I don't think you'll have any success in using third party data recovery software since phones for a while have had file based encryption, and when the image is deleted then the key is also, so don't waste any money on that.

I would probably contact Samsung Support too just for advice. Hopefully the photos are just lost in OneDrive somewhere and you'll get them back.

[Ventor]

@IhasChezBurga ,It is a recognized problem, which breaks the Camera-Gallery relationship. It is not very widespread, usually in storage with high amounts of photos and videos.
Try this: Go to Applications and activate Show system applications, click on the area according to the screenshot.
Find the Sec.Media Storage app and in Storage clear cache and Data / the second accept the warning /. Restart the device and check.
If the problem persists, please submit a Bug Report from the Samsung Members App. Good luck.

[LiquidSnake]

I would say definitely try using free software on your laptop to try to recover your photos. A good recommendation is Wondershare Recoverit 😄.

[Brett5]

Can anyone help me i have the same problem