Formatted the card by mistake? The photos are probably still on it.
A quick format, the kind cameras and the Finder do, writes a new empty directory. The photos underneath stay. Here is how to get them back on a Mac.
What a format actually does
Almost every format is a quick format. The camera or macOS writes a fresh, empty directory to the card and reports "empty". The old photos are still in place, and often the old directory is still there too. On FAT32, exFAT and NTFS, Retriever finds those old directories and brings back names, folders and dates along with the files. In our tests, quick-formatted cards gave back 92 to 99 percent of files byte-identical.
The exception is a full or secure erase, which writes zeros or a fill pattern over the whole card. After that, nothing is left, and Retriever says so within seconds.
Then: stop using the card
Deleting a photo removes its name from the card's directory. The bytes stay until the space is reused. Every new photo, every video, every "format" in the camera menu can overwrite them. So: no new pictures, no formatting, no repair tools. Take the card out and leave it alone until you scan it.
Get them back with Retriever, step by step
- Download Retriever on your Mac. It runs on macOS 13 or newer, Apple Silicon and Intel. Scanning and looking are free.
- Put the card in a reader and choose it in the app. Retriever asks once for your Mac password, through the normal macOS dialog. It reads the card and never writes to it.
- Back up. Retriever makes a bit-for-bit copy of the card and works on the copy. You need free space the size of the card, on the Mac or an external drive.
- Scan. The app reads every byte. "Sniffing through 64 GB…", then "Found 1,204 photos so far".
- Look. Thumbnails by day, the folders of the card, full-size previews. Every file carries an honest badge: intact, probably damaged, fragmented, unverified, duplicate. All of this is free.
- Recover. This is the paid step, 29 USD once. Pick a folder on your Mac, never the card itself. Every written file is verified.
What you get back
Where the old directory survived, the photos come back under their original names, in their original folders, with their dates. Where it did not, Retriever still finds the photos by their content and sorts them by the date inside the file. Either way you see everything before you pay.
Scan and look for free
Download Retriever, choose the card, back up, scan, look. You pay only if you save files you have already seen, 29 USD once.