How to Recover Photos from Broken Phone

Summary: A physically damaged phone doesn’t mean your data is entirely lost and can’t be recovered. In this blog post, we share the best DIY methods to recover photos from your broken or damaged Android phone.

Jack couldn’t believe that his one grand Galaxy S10 was a goner… it had just ‘slipped off’ his hand and hit the ground hard. Lying dead on the floor with a cracked screen, the S10 made a painful sight. But the next moment he realized that he was in for deeper trouble…the precious family photos on his phone were supposedly lost forever…Anger and grief swept his mind.

You may be able to replay a similar situation, with worrisome thoughts of losing your treasure trove of photos stored on a broken phone.

But first, are the photos even recoverable from a broken phone?

The answer is, that it depends. A physically damaged phone doesn’t mean total data loss. However, the successful recovery of photos (and the method) would largely depend on the kind and extent of damage to your phone.

Data from a severely damaged Android phone can be retrieved best by professional data recovery service providers in their specialized labs. However, there are do-it-yourself tools and techniques that can help you recover photos from a broken phone.

So, before you take your phone to a mobile data recovery center, try out the following methods to recover deleted photos from your broken or damaged Android phone.

DIY Methods to Recover Photos from Broken Android Phones

Method 1: Use AutoPlay to retrieve photos

Works in the situation:

Utilize the AutoPlay feature on your computer to get the photos from your broken Android phone. For this method, the USB slot of your phone should be working, as it requires connecting a USB cable for the purpose. The USB debugging should be enabled so that you can connect the phone to a Windows PC via a USB cable.

Steps to recover photos from broken phone with USB debugging enabled:

However, if the USB debugging is Off, you can see nothing on the screen when you connect your phone to the computer. In that case, just use an OTG cable to connect your Android phone to a mouse and then control the operations of the broken phone with the mouse. Your phone should support an OTG cable for the same.

Note: If you want to get pictures off a broken phone that won’t turn on Android, then you may need to go for broken Android data recovery solutions. For more information, Read Here: How to Recover Broken Android Phone that will not turn on.

Method 2: Recover photos from Google Drive

Works in situation:

Google Drive’s backup and sync feature allows you to access the photos on all your synced devices. You can easily recover broken smartphone photos on your computer with the help of Google Drive.

The app stores all your photos saved on your Android phone including Gallery pictures and those shared via WhatsApp messages app etc.

Steps to restore Android pictures from Google Drive:

Note: Google Photos could be your savior in case of a broken Phone. You can easily transfer Pictures from the Old Phone to the New Phone with Google Photos. Read here, how to recover deleted photos from Google Photos.

Method 3: Recover using an SD card.

Almost every Android phone has an SD card option to store photos and videos, and most Android Phones are compatible with an external SD card. If your broken Android phone has an SD card and your photos were stored in it, then you can easily find your lost photos from it. All you need to do is plug the SD card into your new Android phone or any computer using a card reader. Once you plug in your SD card, you can get all your pictures in no time.

Read Here: How to Recover Deleted Photos from SD Card.

Method 4: Use Broken Android Recovery software.

If your photos were saved in the memory card or internal storage, use an Android data recovery softwareStellar Data Recovery for Android. The software retrieves pictures from the broken Android phone’s storage card. It can also recover deleted or lost photos from damaged, corrupt, formatted, and inaccessible mobile phone SD cards.

Works in situation:

Stellar Photo Recovery can retrieve photos from memory cards of all Android phones including Samsung, Nokia, Redmi, Sony, HTC, LG, etc.

Carefully take out the mobile SD card from the slot of your broken phone and follow the given steps.

Steps to retrieve photos from broken phone SD card:

Note: The trial software scans the media and shows a preview of all the recoverable files. Once you are able to ascertain the effectiveness, you can save the recoverable files by activating the software.

Problem:

The SD card of your broken phone is inaccessible or asks to format when you connect it to the computer.

What you can do

Do a Chkdsk scan on your computer as per the steps given here. If the card is still inaccessible or throws formatting errors, recover the photos by using Stellar Data Recovery for Android. The software can detect
corrupt, damaged, inaccessible, or formatted SD cards and foster recovery from it. Once you restore photos from the SD card, format them for reuse.

Steps to perform Chkdsk scan

To Sum Up

Physical damage is a possibility with any smartphone, no matter how much claim is made around their evolving sturdiness. The screen is made of glass and therefore fragile (maybe a few degrees less with tempered glass protection, etc.). But, a physically damaged phone shouldn’t bother you about losing the photos stored on the phone. Of course, a damaged pricey device will burn a hole in your pocket, but an emotional comfort is that the photos can be salvaged.

The various DIY data recovery methods shared in this blog post are worth trying before approaching a professional service provider. To recapitulate the methods—

If these DIY methods don’t work, then visiting a professional Android mobile data recovery expert should help.

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