Missing/Disappeared Photos taken with Camera

[Tical]

I recently had an odd problem with my phone - all of the photos and videos taken with the camera have disappeared. There was one remaining photo in the 'camera' folder visible in the gallery, so I know the folder isn't hidden/no media'd. I'm curious if anyone knows why, or to see if anyone has run into a similar problem. Information summarized below:

• Camera was saving information to the INTERNAL storage, so not an SD card issue
• I have another folder under DCIM called 'Note II' that housed all of my old photos from the last phone... those remained intact... only those in DCIM/camera were impacted
• No other galleries were impacted, downloads, wallpaper folder, and even another folder within DCIM itself were not impacted
• Using ES explorer and making hidden folders visible, I can see the thumbnails of the old photos in the DCIM/.thumbnails folder, but nothing in the camera folder itself
• Not all of the photos were gone. Only those over a 2 weeks old... based on my drop-box uploads, there seem to be a 6 day window where this could have happened... everything before that window was gone, everything after was intact. It is possible that it simply happened in that window and I didn't notice (I don't browse the gallery that frequently), or that there was something about those pictures being older...
• No new apps have been installed
• New Photos show up no problem

I personally had everything backed up to dropbox, so I did not lose anything. (lesson learned from my EVO LTE...RIP) This is more of a curiosity thing. Doing a search, it seems that this issue isn't unheard of, nor is it widespread. Below are a few links of people noting it here on AC either with the Note 3 or the S4, which makes me think it's a Samsung issue...

Mind you, I filtered out any that looked like they were based on a failing SD card. That's a different problem. Examples:

• Note 3 user
• Unknown Sammy User
• S4 User
• An S3 User
• Another Note 3
• Very Recent Note 3 user
• One last example of a Note 3 user

Again, I didn't lose anything, so though definitely good advice, things like "back up to dropbox/google+ next time" do not quite apply here. This is more to bring attention to this and/or centralize a resolution, if there is even one. Thanks and cheers!

TL;DR - Photos/videos taken with Note 3 camera, and only those photos, vanishing without any explanation

 

[the1m.polo]

I'm having this problem on my M8

Sent from my HTC6525LVW using AC Forums mobile app

 

[JCGee]

I am having the same issue twice now on the S5, android 4.4.2.
Everything is stock, not rooted. Stock Camera app.
Photos are in the Gallery app, under the "camera" album, the next minute, they arent.
At first I thought I just deleted them all by mistake, but today it happened again and I know I didnt delete the pics.
I've dug through with ES explorer, no dice. No SD card, Rebooted, nothing is sync'ed out to an account.
At a loss here.

 

[Edelyn Chua]

I'm using an S5, android 4.4.2, and the same thing just happened to me. I'm pretty sure I didn't delete the pictures by accident. Photos that are downloaded, screenshot, or sent via whatsapp are still in the Gallery, only pictures taken on camera are missing

I'm thinking could it be that Google Drive / Picasa automatically deletes pictures in phones after they are transferred in cloud? But it's quite ridiculous if it's done automatically without consent of the phone user.

I hope it's not a bug issue as i've not even gotten my Galaxy S5 for a month after my Note 2's motherboard died on me slightly after a year of getting it

 

[newmilinc]

I have had similar issue twice this year since getting the Galaxy Note 3. 1st time I though I accidentally deleted the folder. This time I am sure I did nothing. Camera Roll just disappeared with all the pictures, but all folders I created and pics are still intact. Was NOT using an SD card. My mistake! I rooted the phone, used Disk Digger and did not find a trace of them. VERY disturbing glich in phone or software, unless it is a bug/virus or app that is doing this.

Anyone else hear about this?

 

[goldroger83]

Hi all,

Had the same problem, only last week's photos are still in the gallery. I had all my photos saved on internal storage. I tried everything with the several file explorer software, I purchased Android Data Recovery Pro but it doesn't connect to the device, apparently it's because the "USB mass storage" feature is no longer available on the new phones. I have a Galaxy S4 4.4.2 not rooted. I tried other data recovery softawres in trial mode and no one seems to be working, except "iCare" which can see a lot of files. the trial version should allow you to receover up to 30 files for free but when I select an image to see the preview it just crashes, so I'm not sure to purchase the full version ($100.00).
I suppose I lost my photos after an update. Is there any way to use android 4.4.2 as USB mass storage? maybe that can fix the issue....
Has any one got suggestion or solved this?

Thanks

 

[huntercous]

Why, why, whyyyyyy? Why did 300+ photos just disappear from my stock Camera folder? S5 Active, not pointed to SD card that I am aware, only the last 4 pics that I took are still there. THIS is so utterly frustrating. Where are they????? Booooo

 

[Candice Schepers]

same here, i have 300 + photos that are missing.. happened on 10/29 as well..

 

[Henry Capili]

So the same thing happened to my Brother in laws Samsung S4 all the videos and pictures went missing that was stored in the internal memory. i also installed Android Data Recovery but no luck it stalled at 90% during the scan. the phone version is 4.4.2. unfortunately there was no back up on Google+ or Drop Box. when I did setup Google + it pick was able to pickup some older pictures but only a few of them.
Any other tools out there that can recover the photos / vids ?

 

[Mihajlo Cvetkovic]

same problem here! photos and videos just disappear from my stock Camera folder! recovery software unsuccessful
any ideas? rooting does not help
.

 

[lterry913]

I had this happen when i uninstalled an app... When the box to uninstall came up it said something about deleting all but media files and i did not check the box... All of a sudden no pictures and videos, so now i am set to auto backup and i will just purge every so often. There was a specific keyboard app that had this warning recently maybe it was a. I. Keyboard. But it has happened after uninstalling other free apps too. Stupid me for not figuring out out the first time. Hope this helps so backup Before deleting any app if you want to be safe. Sorry i can not help with recovery, i hope someone else can help.
! BACKUP IMAGES BEFORE YOU DELETE ANY APP! SORRY FOR THE ALL CAPS BUT I SWEAR THIS WAS MY PROBLEM ON 2 OCCASIONS.

 

[SweetWater56]

I lost about 1,500 pictures by removing my Facebook messanger application a couple of months ago. Google search this issue bc there's some type of temporary back up folder for deleted pictures or something like that. (If I remember right)

Posted via the Android Central App

 

[thechique]

This exact same thing is happening to me. I can't believe that no one knows a solution for it, and no Samsung/Android people are commenting. It seems like a pretty common problem. I've had my phone since November, but the first time that I noticed any missing photos was the first few days of February. At that point, it almost seemed like everything older than a certain date was missing from my Camera folder. A few days ago, I noticed that now everything is missing except the last few days. Everything in the sub-folders is still intact. It seems like it has something to do with an update since it wasn't happening before (I look at my pictures all the time). I DEFINITELY have not deleted anything. I've checked Google + and Dropbox to see if a setting got changed. I thought maybe something had changed so they were automatically backing up and deleting from the device once they had. However, neither of these are set up (on purpose) and there are no archived photos for either of my gmail accounts. I have plenty of memory left on the phone.

Thankfully, I keep my photos pretty organized in sub-folders and these have not been impacted. While I'd rather not lose any files, the pictures that I lost aren't critical. However, I'm going on a couple of trips this year and want to know that I can rely on my phone since I won't always have access to the internet or a computer to back them up to.

 

[lterry913]

Did you try installind es file explorer and enableing hidden files...this did help some of my photos came back...I did set google plus to auto backup and I did get a lot back. And yes it did happen after the last update I don't know if the app deletion with the warning or without was a coincidence or not.

Install the file explorer and go to its settings and scroll down to show hidden files. Go to gallery and see if they show up...if not try turning off phone and restarting and see if they show up. Hopefully some will. After the update or delete of apps some pictures got put in a folder called .nomedia and it is a hidden file.

 

[crjack]

Over 1000 of my photos disappeared from my "Gallery" and also couldn't be found approaching the files from my camera mode. In Apps I checked the Cloud. I hadn't set it up to save pics, so they weren't there ( I set it up for the future!). EUREKA! I checked the folder called "My Files," and they were all there.

 

[lterry913]

I think it's because the cloud can access those hidden files I was mentioning above...glad you found those.

 

[SusieTX]

This post just totally saved my life.

 

[swatimadan]

Hi...am facing the same issue, could you pls advice what exactly you do, I cannot find "cloud"in my apps..!! Would really appreciate the help.

 

[swatimadan]

Hi...am facing the same issue, could you pls advice what exactly you do, I cannot find "cloud"in my apps..!! Would really appreciate the help.

 

[thechique]

I tried everything in this string and wasn't able to recover any of my pictures. In general, I try to either move the pictures to another folder now or off of my phone altogether. The only folder that was lost was the Camera folder itself.