Recover deleted photos on Mac mini?
I accidentally deleted a folder of photos on a Mac Mini. I have been through Apple Support and they could not find them so directed me here to search for an answer.
Mac mini, macOS 26.5
Frankly, when you delete pictures from Recently Deleted, they are gone. Recently Deleted is a great safety feature, but when it is bypassed, there is no additional safety.
You have probably seen this:
If you're missing photos or videos in the Photos app
Basically the above says to look in Recently Deleted and in Hidden. Be sure to check your Library thoroughly. You can use the search field with the date or location—the pictures may not be where you expect, as dates may have changed. And remember, you can sort the Library by date captured or by date added. Also, your Library view now has filters, and you may not have your filter set to "All Items.”
Unfortunately, if you don't keep your own backups to an external drive, then there really isn't any place else to look. Time Machine is a great back up system on a Mac but, even so, external drives sometimes fail. iCloud Photos doesn't act as a true backup, but it can support incremental backups like Time Machine. So the best plan is to have two backups in addition to iCloud Photos. One of the backups might be dragging the entire Photos Library to an additional external drive, maybe each month or so.
Good Luck in the future…