I accidentally deleted files from a mounted CF card. Where did they go?

TL;DR I deleted photos from a mounted CF memory card by accident, but they're not in the trash bin and the undo function did nothing. They're also not located on the memory card, which remains unformatted.


Details: I import photos in Lightroom by copying them from the CF card to my computer, however sometimes the settings seem to change on their own and Lightroom "adds" the files from their current location on the memory card. This requires me to remove the import and start again, specifying to "copy" the files. Well instead of "removing" the images I hit "delete" by accident. I realized my mistake immediately and it seems to have deleted them from the original source memory card. They're not present in the trash bin as far as I can tell. The trash hasn't been emptied and the card is not formatted. How can I recover these files?? Any help would be greatly appreciated.

iMac 27″, macOS 10.13

Posted on May 23, 2024 6:41 AM

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Posted on May 23, 2024 8:29 AM

Thanks for your input.


You are correct, without recovery software those files were gone.


I ended up downloading EaseUS. The trial version lets you at least locate the deleted files before needing to commit to buy. Ended up taking about 20 minutes to scan my 500GB CF express card and came up with the missing files last. The recovery has permission issues a few attempts and got through that by just letting the software save the files to the default option (downloads folder on internal HDD).


Good luck to anyone else working through this issue!

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Question marked as Top-ranking reply

May 23, 2024 8:29 AM in response to etresoft

Thanks for your input.


You are correct, without recovery software those files were gone.


I ended up downloading EaseUS. The trial version lets you at least locate the deleted files before needing to commit to buy. Ended up taking about 20 minutes to scan my 500GB CF express card and came up with the missing files last. The recovery has permission issues a few attempts and got through that by just letting the software save the files to the default option (downloads folder on internal HDD).


Good luck to anyone else working through this issue!

May 23, 2024 7:41 AM in response to LongIslandCity

If you deleted them from a 3rd party app, then they are probably gone for good.


Those memory card aren't very sophisticated and image files are easily identifiable. Any old file recovery tool should be able to recover those images. Don't make any more changes to the card. The recovery tool will recover all deleted images. It will take some time to find the new ones, but it should be possible.

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I accidentally deleted files from a mounted CF card. Where did they go?

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