Image Folder and Images randomly gone!

[Android Central Question]

Hey everyone.

So just over the past few days (this is how long it's taken me to realize) I seem to be missing a good chunk of my saved images on my phone. In the default gallery app on my phone I had a folder called Tumblr where I had a bunch of gifs and images saved from the app. I also had one from Twitter. So I go into my gallery to root through the folder to show a friend something through messenger and....no folder.

I'm on a Huawei P30 Pro. I've tried everything I can think of. Deleting .nomedia files, hard restarting my phone, digging through my internal storage, using a third party app called ES File Explorer. Now if I go into Internal Storage, it DOES say I have around 8000 images. Whereas in my app it says I only have 5000. The numbers line up and I believe I found the .thumbnail files for the gifs but these are just thumbnails. I can't find the actual images themselves.

They aren't in my deleted folder to be restored which makes me believe they're still on my phone somewhere but where? How can I restore them to my gallery?

It should also be noted a week or so ago I wasn't able to view any images that people texted to me, so in trying to fix THAT problem I was messing around with my phone's clean up feature but I was positive I was very careful not to select any image files when I did that but anything is possible.

I just want my images back but I have no idea what to do D:

 

[B. Diddy]

Welcome to Android Central! Are those folders (like the Tumblr one) actual directories in the phone's storage, or are they virtual albums in a gallery app? I'm wondering if the missing photos were ones you downloaded to the phone, and they physically went to the /Download directory. If your gallery app allows for virtual albums, then maybe you assigned that photo to be in the Tumblr album, but it physically remained in the /Download directory. What I'm getting at is that some phones have a "Smart Cleaner" function or app that periodically clears out "unwanted" files, which usually includes the /Download directory, and maybe that's what happened?

Please register on this forum, which will allow you to engage in discussion more easily, as well as post images. https://forums.androidcentral.com/ask-question/409154-join-android-central-community.html

 

[nomiem]

Hey!

I signed up so I could continue the discussion.

I'm not entirely sure. When I'm on the tumblr app for example, and I see an image I want to save, I'll long press it and click save photo. Then when I go to my gallery app there's automatically a folder created called Tumblr. Same with Facebook/twitter/etc. I do have an album called Download as well but that was created when I save images from say, Google images or somewhere random online.

 

[B. Diddy]

Using a file manager, look in the /Pictures directory -- do you see a subdirectory for Facebook or Tumblr there? Also, go to Settings>Apps and select those apps, then tap Permission, and make sure Storage permission is turned on.

If you try saving a photo right now from those apps, do they show up at least temporarily in the Gallery app? If so, select one of the photos and tap the Info/Details option, and see if it tells you the directory/pathname there.

By the way, I would recommend against ES File Explorer. They were bought out by a company called DO Global a while ago, which is a lot like Cheetah Mobile in that they cram a lot of ads and useless/unwanted "features" into their apps, and they also have questionable data-handling. The file managers I recommend are File by Google or Total Commander.

 

[nomiem]

So I have storage permissions on for both those apps. I tried saving an image from both apps and they created a new file in the gallery named Facebook and Tumblr. But my others are still missing. I tried using total Commander and can't see the old file directory, just the new one that was created when I saved new images.

 

[ManiacJoe]

Using your favorite file browser, where are these new folders located, full path?

 

[B. Diddy]

You didn't happen to uninstall Facebook and Tumblr at any point, did you?

 

[nomiem]

No, not at all

 

[nomiem]

Using your favorite file browser, where are these new folders located, full path?

If I go into my files I can go into images and the path is something like images/Facebook or images/tumblr. I have all the thumbnails for the missing gifs (or it appears to be most of them anyway) but not the actual images themselves.

 

[B. Diddy]

Are all of the missing images GIFs, or are you also missing static images?

 

[nomiem]

Are all of the missing images GIFs, or are you also missing static images?

Mostly gifs but regular images as well.

 

[B. Diddy]

Hard to say if it had something to do with the phone's cleanup feature, as you were mentioning. Can you show us a screenshot of the options available to you in that phone cleaner?

http://forums.androidcentral.com/ge...ide-how-post-screenshots-android-central.html