Pictures are gone :( Help please

[m0neycrazy02]

Okay well i was playing around with Think Free Office App on my lg ally and when i was renaming a file i put a period in front of the name which made the file hidden. Well i went to preferences to make all hidden files visible and now all my pictures from that folder are gone. can anyone help me please on how to get those pictures back or where or how i can find them? it never once asked me to confirm a delete so im pretty sure i didn't delete the pictures i just cant find them . Ive already tried mounting my phone to the computer but cant fine them there either. PLease if anyone can help that would be great.

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[Qasar324]

Are your pictures still in your Gallery? If so, the name of that album in the Gallery is the name of the folder where they exist. If the album is called "Camera" the pictures are in SDCard/DCIM/Camera/.

[m0neycrazy02]

no the pictures aren't in the gallery anymore..does that mean they got deleted? hm i really hope they didnt..too many memories im sure you understand..

[Qasar324]

It is hard to say, really. If it was a PC I would say you added an extension that the computer does not recognize. Perhaps you changed the file type and gave the file a blank name. Do you know what I mean?



Like "Picture.jpg" became "__.jpg"



When you connected USB and looked at the SD Card through the Computer were there space-holders there (unrecognized files that show a generic icon)?



Maybe- and I stress maybe- you can put the card directly into the computer through a reader and have the computer see if there are space-holders, but I am not sure why USB connection wouldn't just show that too.



Picasa Web Albums, which links to your phone's gallery, is a great thing. Check it out so this cannot (or will be harder to) happen to you again.

[m0neycrazy02]

can you elaborate on what you mean by space holders? and how does picsa work? is it an app? and if i get this picasa will it be able to find those pictures for me? i find it very odd that i have one of the missing pictures set as my wallpaper and it didn't get removed..so does that mean that they have to be somewhere?

[Ak8s_lgally]

The wallpaper means nothing. I have my wallpaper stored on my SD card. I can take it out of the phone and my wallpaper is still visible.

[m0neycrazy02]

oh i didnt know that..didnt work like that on the phone i had before..but it wasnt an android so maybe thats why

[Qasar324]

No, I don't think Picasa will recover your lost pictures. I meant it for future reference. It auto-syncs with your computer so pictures uploaded to your Picasa account will auto-sync onto your computer. Click the Picasa thread link I left for you. It is a free Google program your phone is already set-up to use if you check the sync button. Read the linked thread for more info.



A generic icon will be placed on files not recognized by your computer. That is a space-holder, so to speak. If you see those on the computer you can try to rename them or give them different extensions in order to be recognized. This, however, is computing logic, not Android logic.



As a test I just tried to rename a picture of mine to "." (a period). ThinkFree sent a warning text box that reads: "If you change a file name extension, the file may become unusable. Are you sure you want to change it?" I chose yes and the picture did not change because I did not type anything after the period. I re-read your post again. There was something after the period which changed the file type. A computer should be able to change this back if you can find the new extension (the file should have a generic icon and will be called whatever the file name was). On a computer, find that file and rename it "[whatever].JPG." (NOTE: the period then "JPG" are what is important here.) This should prompt a dialog from the computer to change the rest. If not, search the web on how to change file extensions or file types.



BTW, ThinkFree does not need delete confirmation by default. You have to enable that feature in Preferences.

[m0neycrazy02]

okay well im going to try what you suggested qasar and on a side note the reason i said that i didnt get a conformation to delete is because i DID set the setting to ask me to confirm a delete. Im still trying but ill keep you posted..thanks for the all the help

[m0neycrazy02]

okay so i was playing around and i found a whole bunch on CACHE files...and they looked almost like pictures so i did some research and figured out a way to open the cache files and sure enough there are my pictures! now my question to you is...can i just move them to a different folder and change the extension to JPG like you said?