What is included in Wondershare Photo Recovery?

Photo Recovery – Restores deleted JPG, PNG, BMP, PSD and RAW images.
Read-Only Scanning – Scans the source drive without writing to it.
Preview And Repair – Corrupt photos are repaired during the preview stage.
Device Coverage – SD cards, USB drives, cameras, drones, NAS.
Core Capacity – Over 1,000 file types across 2,000 storage devices.
Important – Commercial use rights and Windows Server support are not included in this edition.

What are the main benefits of Wondershare Photo Recovery?

Wondershare Photo Recovery is the photo, video and audio recovery function of Wondershare Recoverit (currently V14), a read-only recovery tool for Windows and macOS. It is aimed at deleted, formatted or inaccessible image files on internal drives, memory cards, USB media, cameras and drones.

Fast Triage – Quick Scan surfaces recently deleted photos within seconds.
Deep Signature Scan – Carves RAW images from formatted or corrupted cards.
Safe Handling – Read-only mode prevents further overwriting of evidence.
Verify Before Recovering – Preview shows which images are actually intact.
Camera Formats – Handles CR2, NEF, ORF, RAF, SR2, DNG.
Disk Image Scanning – Scan a clone instead of a failing drive.

Data loss is expensive: How backups help you avoid outages
For more background on backup planning, read our guide:

What does Wondershare Photo Recovery actually do?

It scans a storage device for image, video and audio files that were deleted, formatted away or lost through partition damage, and writes the recovered copies to a different location. The scan runs in read-only mode, so the source card or drive is never modified during the search. Two scan levels are available: Quick Scan reads the file table for recently deleted entries, while Deep Scan carves files back by their signatures when the file system itself is gone. In practice this is the difference between rescuing a card you emptied by mistake this morning and rescuing a card a camera reformatted mid-shoot.

Which photo formats and devices does it support?

The supported image list covers JPG/JPEG, TIFF/TIF, PNG, BMP, GIF, PSD and camera RAW types including CRW, CR2, NEF, ORF, RAF, SR2, MRW, DCR, DNG and ERF. On the hardware side it reads SD, SDHC, SDXC, microSD, CF and xD cards, USB sticks, internal and external HDDs and SSDs, plus cameras, camcorders and drones from Canon, Nikon, Sony, Fuji, Pentax, DJI and GoPro. Recovery from NAS units and Linux volumes is also part of the current version. The card or camera must be recognised by the computer as a drive before a scan can start, which is the practical limit for physically dead media.

What is the difference between the free and the premium version?

Both versions scan identically; the free version caps the total volume of files you may actually save at 500 MB and omits two features. Corrupt video repair and the WinPE bootable toolkit for recovering from a machine that no longer starts are premium-only. Everything else, including BitLocker-encrypted drive scanning, disk image scanning, NAS and Linux recovery and in-preview repair of damaged photos and documents, is available in both. For a full SD card of RAW files the 500 MB ceiling is reached almost immediately, which is the usual reason photographers move to the premium version.

Which technical exclusions should buyers know about before choosing it?

Three exclusions matter. First, the individual edition does not carry commercial use rights: Wondershare sells organisational deployment as a separate Business plan, so a repair shop or IT department recovering client cards needs that plan rather than this one. Second, Windows Server is not on the manufacturer's supported operating system list, which covers Windows 11, 10, 8, 7 and Vista plus macOS X 10.10 through macOS 15 (Sequoia); a file server rescue therefore means pulling the disk and scanning it from a workstation. Third, the internal storage of an iPhone is not among the supported devices — Recoverit reads Android storage and memory cards, while Wondershare handles iOS device recovery in its separate Dr.Fone product.

Who is Wondershare Photo Recovery best suited for?

It suits anyone whose lost images sit on removable media a computer can still mount: photographers with a reformatted CF or SD card, drone and action-cam users, and home users who emptied a Recycle Bin. The deciding capability is RAW carving combined with in-preview repair — you can see whether a CR2 or NEF file actually opens before recovering it, instead of restoring thousands of unusable fragments. For a failing drive rather than a deleted folder, the disk image function is the reason to choose it: you clone the drive once and scan the clone, so the dying disk is not put through hours of additional reads. Users who need to rescue photos from a PC that no longer boots need the premium version, since the bootable toolkit is not in the free one.

Frequently asked questions about Wondershare Photo Recovery

Can photos deleted a long time ago still be recovered?

Yes. According to Wondershare, elapsed time is irrelevant as long as the original data has not been overwritten by new writes. This is why the card or drive should be taken out of use immediately after the loss is noticed.

Why should recovered photos not be saved to the original drive?

Writing recovered files back to the same drive can overwrite the structures the software is still reading, which turns a partial loss into a permanent one. Wondershare advises saving to a different disk. Plan a second drive or a large USB stick before the scan starts.

How does Quick Scan differ from Deep Scan?

Quick Scan checks the file system and covers most ordinary deletions in seconds. Deep Scan performs a signature-based search of the whole volume and is the mode that works after formatting or corruption. As a reference point, Wondershare states that a healthy 100 GB drive typically takes around an hour.

Can photos be recovered from a damaged SD card?

Yes, provided the computer still recognises the card as a device. The software then deep-scans it for image and video signatures. If the card is not detected at all — a controller or physical failure — no software-based recovery tool can read it.

Does it run on macOS as well as Windows?

Yes. The supported systems are Windows 11, 10, 8, 7 and Vista, and macOS X 10.10 through macOS 15 (Sequoia). Windows and Mac builds are separate downloads, so pick the one matching the machine you will run the scan from, not the machine the photos came from.