I factory-reset my Samsung Galaxy S10 almost a year ago and didn't have the photos backed up to cloud storage. The phone was used for less than ten minutes after the reset, then powered off and stored away. Is there any realistic way to recover the photos, or are they permanently gone?
3 Answers
For a modern Galaxy S10, recovery is effectively impossible for the average user. The phone uses encryption, and a factory reset removes the keys needed to access the old data. Recovery apps are very unlikely to help and may just be scams, especially after this much time.
It’s still worth checking whether Google Photos, Samsung Gallery sync, OneDrive, or another account had automatic backup enabled. Also look for copies on an old computer, messaging app, removable storage, or any other device. If no duplicate exists anywhere, the reset likely made the originals unrecoverable.
If the phone had remained untouched and powered off after the reset, specialized chip-level recovery might theoretically have been considered, but it would be expensive and uncertain. Since it was used briefly afterward and has been sitting for nearly a year, the practical chances are essentially zero.
Modern phones are much harder to recover than older devices because encryption is tied to the phone’s security hardware, so even specialist tools usually can’t reconstruct the old files.
Even professional recovery would have extremely poor odds on this kind of encrypted device, so spending a lot of money probably wouldn’t be worthwhile.