How Can I Recover Deleted Data from My Android Phone?

[Fervent Freyja]

Oops! Oh no, I accidentally factory reset my old android LG cell phone that I replaced 3 weeks ago (being a nice parent give it to my daughter to play with, whose primary guardian is my wife) but had important text messages, facebook messages, and "photos" that I had accidentally deleted and need back.

Absolute best software for full recovery of all the data in internal storage (1/3 full) Anything better than the $1000 30-day quote from specialists?

I have already wasted $100 for software like Dr.fone and androidrecovery. I need to know if it will be worth paying out to try and recover my precious lost messages and photos?

 

[jedishrfu]

I think they are lost for good but I don't know how android deletes files. If you have a backup then you might recover the data from the backup.

On many OS, the delete is to delink it from the directory, when writing new data to gets written to blank areas first before actually using areas used earlier (think like writing messages on a blackboard with deleting just crossing out the message and erasing done only when you run out of blackboard space) and not wipe the data but it takes special software to recover in any case.

However, If the phone was used to save stuff then you may have lost some of your stuff depending on how full it was. For texts you might be able to recover some stuff by contacting your friends and asking them to save and send it back to you.

 

[Fervent Freyja]

Android phones seem to link to a Google account. I know that I have my own words recorded when I use google text-to-speech for writing texts. And that my gps location had been recorded, daily, to my Google "family" account. But call logs and texts seem to be recorded elsewhere.

It looks like my phone has text messages and Facebook messages stored in internal, although there was a factory reset. So, I'm thinking they could be recoverable. One of the specialists in my case seems to believe that is so, but I don't want to pay out $1000, when he may not be able to deliver me those accidentally deleted messages!

 

[jedishrfu]

Facebook is web-based so it keeps your stuff on their server. I think you can request everything they have on you so you can see what you posted in the past.

Some folks have been interested in doing this since the great Facebook + Russia debacle.

If your Android messaging service is tied to your Google Gmail account, it may be accessible by a web browser then you might get that stuff too. I think my Gmail keeps chats I initiated from Gmail. I can't say about the phone since I have an iPhone.

 

[Fervent Freyja]

Thanks, I have a few old devices laying around the house, potentially still logged into my facebook. I'll do a check in a few days.