Is There A Way To Retrieve Accidentally "Deleted" Photos From A Phone?

[SquirrelMadness]

Samsung S7 Edge.

I was backing up my WhatsApp photos (4 years worth) to my PC via a dodgy USB cable.

Instead of copy/paste I was rushing and did cut/paste.

Within a minute the USB connection malfunctioned and only 10 photos got copied over.

The "WhatsApp Images" folder is now no longer on the phone, it's gone into oblivion.

Too late to do CTRL-Z.

I have tried Android deleted file retrievers (Disk Digger, Dumpster) as well as Windows software (Rescue Disk, Dr Fone).

The Windows versions only find photos that are actually still there, the Android versions just bring up hidden pictures like album covers and video thumbnails.

Is it really impossible to do? I have retrieved deleted files from HDD, SSD, USB storage and Micro SD in the past but from an actual phone seems impossible?

Thanks

 

[SquirrelMadness]

I don't use WA anymore (Meta /spits), ll I can think of here is that WhatsApp does a cloud backup (if setup) and if you clear the storage (cache, data - or just uninstall and re-install) then when you come to setup it should offer media restoration. I would check around WhatsApp first to see when your last backup was run as you'll be losing messages as well when you clear all data.

I never use cloud storage. The phone imploded anyway... got FRP locked out so now not only WA pics gone but conversations too... oh well. At least I backed up everything else almost.

Is there a way to locally back up the whole phone? Thinking of just periodically backing all my phones to a dedicated external SSD like every few months.