You can just buy a new phone if you lose your phone. But now everyone considers cellphones as the most valuable devices because of the data stored in them. And if your phone is lost, you certainly hope the data is back.
As it turns out, there are several ways to recover photo and video files from a lost or stolen phone. Here’s the details.
1. Try accessing Google Photos with the same account from the lost phone
Google Photos is the best hope for you to regain access to old photos and videos from your lost phone. This app has a feature to automatically upload media files to the cloud by default.
This means your photos and videos may still be available in your Google account. The method is quite easy, just log in with the same account, and your favorite photos will be available. However, in some cases, Google Photos doesn’t sync your data, if: the phone manufacturer disabled automatic sync, the upload only runs on a WiFi connection and you’re not on WiFi, or you’ve disabled sync manually.
If so, your Google Photos data may be incomplete or not available at all. Meanwhile, iPhone users can check iCloud to get photos and videos from the device.
2. Try using Dropbox
In addition to Google Photos, some apps like Dropbox, OneDrive, or Amazon Photos have an automatic upload feature when on a WiFi network. If you’ve used this app before, try logging into the service again and see if your photos are still available.
If you’ve used one or more of these apps, try accessing your account again. Maybe you can find your old lost photos and videos. But unfortunately, if the sync feature is disabled, you won’t find anything.
3. Send a message to your lost phone
Admittedly, this method is very unlikely. Especially if your phone is lost because it was stolen. Because, of course, no thief wants to confess. However, there are a number of people who are lucky enough to get their phone back even if it was in the hands of a thief. This happened to a man in Delhi, India who got his cellphone back via courier after asking the thief to return it.
But in an emergency situation like this, all means must be tried. Send a message whether it’s SMS, WhatsApp, or whatever else can be read by the person who found it, then ask him to return it. There’s nothing wrong with promising a reward for anyone who returns your phone and the data that comes with it.
That’s how you can restore your lost photos or even your phone. There’s no guarantee that the method mentioned above will work, but it’s worth a try.
