1. mvsalvino's Avatar
    Going through the photos on my K1, I noticed there were some duplicates that came from using the BlackBerry Transfer app when I got my replacement K1 a few months ago.

    I keep all my photos on the SD card in specific directories, so figured it would be a quick fix, just delete the duplicates that are not on the SD card that were transfered over during the switch. Looking at the duplicate photos info, they said they were in a "Pictures" directory.

    Pulled up the BlackBerry Files app and noticed a directory called "Pictures" which had lots of random stuff in it - album art, downloaded wallpapers, etc. So I selected all and deleted.

    Then I go back to my SD card and everything is gone! All photos everywhere on the device are gone!

    I thought the "Pictures" was a directory, didn't realize it was literally all photos across all storages. Is there a trash or way to undo? Just lost about 8 years worth of photos!
    Last edited by mvsalvino; 06-21-18 at 10:15 AM.
    06-21-18 10:02 AM
  2. Bla1ze's Avatar
    Were you not backing things up to Google Photos?
    Carjackd likes this.
    06-21-18 10:17 AM
  3. mvsalvino's Avatar
    Yes this is "user error", but there is literally no messaging whatsoever in the BlackBerry Files app that indicates "Pictures" is showing you all photos across all storages. Same must be true for the other buttons. I thought it was the /Pictures directory which is where all the junk files were. What a mess.

    A word of warning to those who try to be organized and use the antiquated concept of directories for organizing files...
    Omahahaha likes this.
    06-21-18 10:22 AM
  4. brookie229's Avatar
    There are data/photo recovery tools that you can try. Recuva is one such windows program that I have seen work on a pendrive but I doubt if it's a sure thing.
    Murundum likes this.
    06-21-18 10:23 AM
  5. mvsalvino's Avatar
    Were you not backing things up to Google Photos?
    No, I just use the SD card, have been using one since the 9900. Looks like the delete is irreversible as I do not see a trash, and the storage has freed up significantly.
    06-21-18 10:27 AM
  6. glwerry's Avatar
    Yes this is "user error", but there is literally no messaging whatsoever in the BlackBerry Files app that indicates "Pictures" is showing you all photos across all storages. Same must be true for the other buttons. I thought it was the /Pictures directory which is where all the junk files were. What a mess.

    A word of warning to those who try to be organized and use the antiquated concept of directories for organizing files...
    Here's another word of warning, then. If you keep your photos on the SD card, then backing them up externally is MANDATORY: I was looking at replacing the hard drive in my laptop with a solid state drive (SSD) and read that if you have an issue with an SSD that the data is UNRECOVERABLE. In contrast, normally a hard drive failure will still allow specialists to recover most or all of your critical data.

    This is for the future, of course.
    FF22 and Murundum like this.
    06-21-18 10:28 AM
  7. bb10adopter111's Avatar
    You can back up your photos easily without having to use Google photos, if you prefer. I sync my photos with OneDrive automatically during the week, then take a few minutes to edit, organize and transfer them to a private cloud server each Sunday morning.

    Personally I prefer not to have Google monetizing my data for free. Sure, using Google is very easy and convenient on Android, but it's really not difficult to avoid most of the Google free services. And the phone's work just fine with alternatives for everything but the Play store and location services. (Both of which you can restrict efficiently by withholding permissions (a breeze with DTEK).

    Posted with my trusty Z10
    FF22 and Murundum like this.
    06-21-18 10:28 AM
  8. Bla1ze's Avatar
    No, I just use the SD card, have been using one since the 9900. Looks like the delete is irreversible as I do not see a trash, and the storage has freed up significantly.
    There is no trash. You might want to check your Google Drive account though if you used that with BlackBerry Content Transfer. There might be an old backup of SOME of the photos still there. Unless you 1). Never used Drive 2). Deleted that as well at some point.

    And to be clear, I wasn't 'scolding' you. Some people have GPhotos enabled and don't even know it, was just checking. Sorry you lost your photos, hopefully you can get them back or at least some of them.
    06-21-18 10:30 AM
  9. sonicpix's Avatar
    Pandora file recovery should get most back. It's a free download.
    06-21-18 10:42 AM
  10. mvsalvino's Avatar
    There is no trash. You might want to check your Google Drive account though if you used that with BlackBerry Content Transfer. There might be an old backup of SOME of the photos still there. Unless you 1). Never used Drive 2). Deleted that as well at some point.

    And to be clear, I wasn't 'scolding' you. Some people have GPhotos enabled and don't even know it, was just checking. Sorry you lost your photos, hopefully you can get them back or at least some of them.
    Thanks, I will check it out. I believe I used the WiFi transfer though. I understand you weren't scolding, it is the natural question to ask.

    I haven't used Google Drive since I briefly had it turned on by default on my Nexus 4 in 2013 (which I couldn't stand and replaced with a Q10 once it came out). One day I logged in to Google online and saw a bunch of personal pictures show up. Back then I think by default it would publish your photos to Google+. Immediately quit using after that. To be fair, Google does make it impossible to actually delete a photo once it is synced to them, maybe I should give in to the information overlords.

    The last backup I have would have been from the Link/Blend days which were pretty good tools, will have to try and dig that up.
    06-21-18 10:47 AM
  11. mvsalvino's Avatar
    Pandora file recovery should get most back. It's a free download.
    Wow! This is worked great. Thanks for the recommendation. Purchased the upgrade version since the free maxes out at 500MB.
    06-21-18 11:18 AM
  12. brookie229's Avatar
    Good to know that those recovery tools can work. Like I said above, Recuva worked on a pendrive for a buddy of mine. Nice to hear about Pandora.
    06-21-18 11:23 AM
  13. bb10adopter111's Avatar
    Wow! This is worked great. Thanks for the recommendation. Purchased the upgrade version since the free maxes out at 500MB.
    That's awesome if you got your photos back! Do figure out a long term sync/backup strategy, as there are many ways to do it.

    Posted with my trusty Z10
    06-21-18 11:23 AM
  14. howarmat's Avatar
    never trust a SD card as they can fail easily enough Always have automated backup somehow. With todays cloud options this is easy to accomplish.

    Mine go to google, icloud and a personal NAS all without me lifting my finger but you can substitute any of those solutions with 100 others.
    06-21-18 11:40 AM
  15. mvsalvino's Avatar
    That's awesome if you got your photos back! Do figure out a long term sync/backup strategy, as there are many ways to do it.

    Posted with my trusty Z10
    Yes, I may have to make more of a ritual of plugging in to the computer and doing an old fashioned backup every month or so. I'd like to avoid having to install and use a 3rd party service for backups.

    But if anyone from BlackBerry is reading, please consider adding messaging to the files app that indicates those buttons are showing all files of that type across the device. It would improve the UX. Especially since Android uses directories of the same name as those buttons. I had to learn that the hard way lol.

    And thanks everyone for chiming in with help.
    06-21-18 11:52 AM
  16. bb10adopter111's Avatar
    Yes, I may have to make more of a ritual of plugging in to the computer and doing an old fashioned backup every month or so. I'd like to avoid having to install and use a 3rd party service for backups.

    But if anyone from BlackBerry is reading, please consider adding messaging to the files app that indicates those buttons are showing all files of that type across the device. It would improve the UX. Especially since Android uses directories of the same name as those buttons. I had to learn that the hard way lol.

    And thanks everyone for chiming in with help.
    I have a paid O365 account that I sync with. The information is private and encrypted and it's an automatic sync. Nothing wrong with USB transfer either, but I am happy to pay a few dollars a month for cloud storage. I just won't use the free services that mine my data instead of charging a reasonable fee.

    Posted with my trusty Z10
    FF22 likes this.
    06-21-18 11:55 AM
  17. FF22's Avatar
    Here's another word of warning, then. If you keep your photos on the SD card, then backing them up externally is MANDATORY: I was looking at replacing the hard drive in my laptop with a solid state drive (SSD) and read that if you have an issue with an SSD that the data is UNRECOVERABLE. In contrast, normally a hard drive failure will still allow specialists to recover most or all of your critical data.

    This is for the future, of course.
    I just upgraded my 256gig ssd C: drive on my computer to a 1 tetra ssd card. But that's a good warning. At the moment most of my MEDIA, photos, music and video are still stored on a SPINNING hard drive D:, but I had considered moving them to the now spacious C: drive.

    I have decades of photos starting with my first digital camera in 2001. I did use to copy them off to dvd's and stored copies at a friend's house. Been lazy for years now - might be time to renew that practice.
    06-21-18 12:20 PM
  18. glwerry's Avatar
    I just upgraded my 256gig ssd C: drive on my computer to a 1 tetra ssd card. But that's a good warning. At the moment most of my MEDIA, photos, music and video are still stored on a SPINNING hard drive D:, but I had considered moving them to the now spacious C: drive.

    I have decades of photos starting with my first digital camera in 2001. I did use to copy them off to dvd's and stored copies at a friend's house. Been lazy for years now - might be time to renew that practice.
    I have become lazy also - I do a LOT of pictures and periodically fire up an external hard drive to back things up.

    I also use OneDrive (cloud storage) - that's likely the best bet, as I vaguely remember some stories about DVDs having issues when they age.
    Unfortunately, we have pretty slow internet and so I can't just do an automatic backup of all my pictures to the cloud. That would be the ideal.
    FF22 likes this.
    06-21-18 02:18 PM
  19. sonicpix's Avatar
    Wow! This is worked great. Thanks for the recommendation. Purchased the upgrade version since the free maxes out at 500MB.
    Good to know. I've been using it for years and most files are recovered.
    06-22-18 07:44 AM
  20. Murundum's Avatar
    Pandora file recovery should get most back. It's a free download.
    Is it a website or app?
    06-22-18 08:11 AM
  21. Murundum's Avatar
    Pandora is an app or site?
    06-22-18 08:12 AM
  22. sonicpix's Avatar
    Is it a website or app?
    Is an App that's free.
    06-22-18 08:13 AM
  23. johnb_xp's Avatar
    Try popping the SD into your PC And using Recuva. You're lucky it wasn't on the phone's storage lol. Also, I highly recommended backing up photos on your own PC. You can use Filezilla on Windows PCs and https://f-droid.org/repo/org.primftpd_34.apk this app to quickly, wirelessly, and securely send files directly over your local network. Only use SFTP.
    06-22-18 09:02 AM
  24. johnb_xp's Avatar
    I just upgraded my 256gig ssd C: drive on my computer to a 1 tetra ssd card. But that's a good warning. At the moment most of my MEDIA, photos, music and video are still stored on a SPINNING hard drive D:, but I had considered moving them to the now spacious C: drive.

    I have decades of photos starting with my first digital camera in 2001. I did use to copy them off to dvd's and stored copies at a friend's house. Been lazy for years now - might be time to renew that practice.
    SSDs can fail at any time while spinning makes loud noises and act funny first.
    06-22-18 09:04 AM
  25. FF22's Avatar
    SSDs can fail at any time while spinning makes loud noises and act funny first.
    Actually, the most recent loud noises were the power supply failing. That is what spurred the additional upgrades. Added any 8gigs of memory and the new 1 tetra ssd drive. Now I guess I'm going to be concerned - kind of like when will the screen pop off my KeyOne (it already has!) But the former ssd drive did run flawlessly for 3+ years. But I had less than 1gig available on the 256gig drive. Windows needed more room.
    06-22-18 09:09 AM
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