How to Recover Deleted Photos on an unrooted Nexus 4?

[GlowyBubbles]

Hello, everyone.
Recently, a friend of mines accidentally deleted some precious photos on my Nexus 4. So, I've been trying different programs to recover them. Unfortunately, none of them worked. Either the program didn't recognize my Nexus 4 or the program didn't work because the Nexus 4 lacked the option of turning on USB Mass Storage mode. (If there's a way to turn on USB Mass Storage mode, please let me know.). I really want to recover these photos because they're important to me. Can anyone tell me different methods to recover the deleted photos? I would like to avoid rooting my phone at all costs. Thanks.
Also, is there a set time frame that I have to do this within to be successful in recovering the lost photos?

 

[joshua.worth]

Weird i didn't know this was even possible

Sent from my Nexus 4

 

[mm1000]

I've got same problem.

No USB Storage Mode (USM) on Nexus 4, also I've tried Wondershare Dr.Fone for Android and I have a problem with step "USB utilities option".
Other programs is USM dependended such as: Stellar Phoenix Photo Recovery, PC Inspector File Recovery.

Also I've tried "adb pull [path to camera folder]" but there weren't deleted photos copied. "adb" is Android Debug Bridge from Android SDK.

 

[Gianpiero Celano]

I have similar problems using a fake Samsung 32g class 10 micro SD card.
11? and the only app that worked for me was disk digger free and less than 100kb of space.
I think there is no time limit to retrieve files but writing on the same memory will reduce the chance to recover them.
Software for PC I think is better but you may need expert advice ex. Xda developers to access your phone memory from pc.
There are also plenty of Chinese applications but I don't speak Chinese and no way to use them.

 

[narlim]

The Asoftech Photo Recovery doesn't work for me. My Nexus 4 doesn't appear as a drive. I'm wondering what settings your device was on? Any help would be appreciated!!!

 

[moosc]

Your phone is flash memory. Once deleted it gets rewritten. You need to setup dropbox and auto upload your photos. Chance of recovery photos less 3%. Jerry posted a great write up on this.

Sent from my Galaxy Nexus using Xparent Cyan Tapatalk 2

 

[narlim]

Thanks for the info! I do use dropbox but accidentally deleted a few pictures before they were backed up. You say there's a slim chance of recovery - any tips would mean a lot!

 

[Jenny Crawford]

No. Enabling USB Debugging does not work, at least with the latest 4.3 update. The device still only registers to windows as a portable device, not a device with a drive letter, so none of those programs will work. I have not found anything yet that will allow someone to recover photos deleted from a 4.3 device, it seems to have something to do with the update making the phone use something called "TRIM" for file management. Infuriating. I'm going to try rolling back to 4.2.2.