Media vanished nougat 7.0

[AC Question]

So recently updated to the latest software on my s6 edge and woke up this morning to several hundred pics and vids missing from my download folder.

The folder itself is still there but had went from 300 or so items to 21 seemingly randomly untouched pics and vids.

Pictures of my son seconds after birth have vanished and I've tried file manager etc but the phone is now showing as having several more gigs of free space. Could this be something to do with this new device maintenance feature?

Please help me

 

[B. Diddy]

Welcome to Android Central! These photos and videos were saved to the Download directory? Does that mean they weren't taken by the phone's Camera app?

It's possible that the device maintenance feature might be the reason -- does it do scheduled cleanup of the Download directory? In general, it's a good idea to move files from the Download directory to some other directory if you plan on keeping it (if only to organize it more easily). But it's also a great idea to backup your important photos/videos on a regular basis, since phone storage is not 100% reliable (i.e., the phone itself might fail, or the phone might get lost or stolen, etc.). In the future, I strongly recommend using Google Photos backup: https://support.google.com/photos/answer/6193313?co=GENIE.Platform=Android&hl=en