Can't restore photos from Samsung gallery/One Drive

Question

I deleted some photos from Samsung gallery, which are backed up on One Drive, and tried to restore them from the recycling bin. However I get a message that says they can't be restored as they had been deleted or restored from the One Drive app. I hadn't done either thing on the One Drive app. I went on the One Drive app and tried restoring what was in the recycling bin - it's rubbish as you can't see what you are restoring at all but I did it all. Now the One Drive recycling bin is empty. I go back to Samsung gallery bin and try again to restore the photos that are still there and I get the same message. Some photos have been restored to the main gallery but not all. I still have 18 days until they are deleted. Please help.

Answer 1

Hello Mariana,

Thank you for reaching out to the Microsoft Community! Based on what you’ve described, it seems like there’s a sync conflict between Samsung Gallery and OneDrive. When you deleted the photos from Samsung Gallery, they were likely also flagged for deletion in OneDrive, and even though you didn’t delete them directly from the OneDrive app, the system may have interpreted the action that way. Unfortunately, OneDrive’s Recycle Bin doesn’t always show previews, making it hard to know what you’re restoring, and if the files were permanently deleted or not fully restored, they may now be gone from OneDrive.

Even though the Samsung Gallery bin still shows the photos, it might not be able to restore them if the linked OneDrive backup is missing. I recommend checking OneDrive’s Second-Stage Recycle Bin on a desktop browser, as some files may still be recoverable there. If you’re a Microsoft 365 subscriber, you can also try using the “Restore your OneDrive” feature to roll back your entire OneDrive to a previous state. Additionally, clearing the cache and data for both the OneDrive and Samsung Gallery apps, then re-syncing, might help resolve any lingering sync issues. If the photos are still visible in the Samsung Gallery bin, try restoring them one by one.

This might help

https://support.microsoft.com/en-us/office/restore-deleted-files-or-folders-in-onedrive-949ada80-0026-4db3-a953-c99083e6a84f