PhotoRec is a data recovery software tool designed to recover lost files from digital camera memory (CompactFlash, Secure Digital, SmartMedia, Memory Stick, Microdrive, MMC, DD rw image, USB flash drives etc.), hard disks and CDs/DVDs.
It recovers most common photo formats, including JPEG, and also recovers audio files including MP3, document formats such as Microsoft Office, PDF and HTML, and archive formats including ZIP. It has been extended to search also for non audio/video headers.
The software recovers files from ext2, ext3, FAT, NTFS and HFS+ filesystems.
PhotoRec is shipped with TestDisk.
Key Features
- Intuitive interface.
- Software still recovers images even if the file system has been badly damaged or formatted.
- Searches for a wide variety of formats including:
- Video: Macromedia (.flv), MOV video (.mov), Moving Picture Experts Group video (.mpg), Macomedia Compressed Flash (.swc).
- Graphics: BMP bitmap (.bmp), Canon Raw picture (.crw), Canon catalog (.ctg), Nikon dsc (.dsc), JPEG picture (.jpg), Minolta Raw picture (.mrw), Olympus Raw Format picture (.orf), Portable Network Graphics (.png), Raw Fujifilm picture (.raf), Contax picture (.raw), Rollei picture (.rdc), Tag Image File Format (.tiff), Sigma/Foveon X3 raw picture (.x3f).
- Audio: Sun/NeXT audio data (.au), MP3 audio (MPEG ADTS, layer III, v1) (.mp3), Real Audio (.rm), RIFF audio/video (.avi/.wav), Microsoft ASF (.wma), FastTrackerII Extended Module (.xm).
- Archive: Archive (.ace), bzip2 compressed data (.bz2), Tar archive (.tar ).
- Other: Source code written in C (.c), FAT subdirectory, HTML page (.html), Microsoft Office Document (.doc), MSOffice “Open” XML (.docx, .pptx, .xlsx), Portable Document Format (.pdf), Perl script (.pl), Quickbooks (.qbb and .qbw), Registry config file (.reg), Rich Text Format (.rtf), RPM package (.rpm), Shell script (.sh), zip archive (.zip).
- Compatible with Linux, DOS, Windows, FreeBSD, NetBSD, OpenBSD, Mac OS X, and SunOS.
Website: www.cgsecurity.org
Support: PhotoRec Step By Step
Developer: Christophe Grenier and contributors
License: GNU General Public License v2.0
PhotoRec is written in C. Learn C with our recommended free books and free tutorials.
Related Software
| Data Recovery Tools | |
|---|---|
| ddrescue | GNU data recovery tool |
| SystemRescue | System rescue disk |
| TestDisk | Partition scanner and disk recovery tool |
| Relax-and-Recover | Linux Disaster Recovery |
| Mondo Rescue | Tool for configuring and maintaining network machines |
| PhotoRec | Digital Picture and File Recovery |
| Rescuezilla | Complete disaster recovery solution |
| safecopy | Copy utility ignoring errors |
| Redo Rescue | Backup and recovery solution |
| Foremost | Recover files based on their headers, footers, and internal data structures |
| Scalpel | Data carving tool |
| ext4magic | Recover deleted or overwritten files |
| RevLix | Developed to recover deleted files on Linux systems |
Read our verdict in the software roundup.
 Explore our comprehensive directory of recommended free and open source software. Our carefully curated collection spans every major software category.This directory is part of our ongoing series of informative articles for Linux enthusiasts. It features hundreds of detailed reviews, along with open source alternatives to proprietary solutions from major corporations such as Google, Microsoft, Apple, Adobe, IBM, Cisco, Oracle, and Autodesk. You’ll also find interesting projects to try, hardware coverage, free programming books and tutorials, and much more. Know a useful open source Linux program that we haven’t covered yet? Let us know by completing this form. |