Forum Discussion
Urgent! Is there any free photo recovery software for PC to recommend? (Windows 11 / Mac is OK)
I had a similar experience. I was stunned when I cleared the SD card. Fortunately, I recovered a lot of photos with command line tools. Here are two command line methods, both of which are built-in or open source, suitable for people who don't want to install too many third-party things.
✅ Method 1: Use the winfr tool (Windows File Recovery) built into Windows
This is an official recovery tool from Microsoft, which can be used since Windows 10. The command looks like this:
bash
winfr C: D:\recovered /regular /n *.jpg /n *.png /n *.cr2
It means to recover photos in .jpg/.png/.cr2 format from the C drive to the recovered folder of the D drive, supporting RAW format. It's pretty powerful, but the command line is a little bit difficult.
If you are looking for the best free photo recovery software for PC, this is definitely worth a try, it's free and officially produced.
✅ Method 2: Use the open source tool PhotossRec
This is in the TestsDisk suite, supports Windows and macOS, and is mainly operated by the command line, but it can scan various devices and even read crashed partitions:
bash
photorssec
After entering, select Disk → File Type (only JPG, PNG, RAW) → Output Path, and the recovery will start automatically.
Although the interface is in pure English character mode, the recovery ability is very strong and fully deserves the title of "best free photo recovery software for PC". It can also be used on the Mac side and has good compatibility.
I have used both of them. If you are not afraid of typing commands, it is definitely more reliable than those "free tools" with advertisements flying all over the sky. I sincerely recommend it as one of the best free photo recovery software for PC solutions when you are trying to recover photos. I hope you can get your photos back!
In addition, it is strongly recommended not to write anything to the hard disk before recovery to avoid overwriting the original data, otherwise even the best "best free photo recovery software for PC" will be powerless. Come on 🍀