People love Mac OS because of its intuitive and easy-to-use navigation, ability to run Apple’s exclusive applications, strong security features, and high build quality. Moreover, Macs are also known for their storage space, as recent Macs are configured with SSDs ranging in size from 128 GB to 8TB. This ensures that you don’t run out of space while saving your personal data, be it images, videos, documents, etc.
Although Macs are known for their storage capacity, losing photos is still a common issue. Apple users often complain that ‘photos have disappeared from Mac,’ which can be due to accidental deletion, data overwriting, or faulty updates. Fortunately, there is way to recover lost or deleted photos from a Mac by using both Time Machine Backup and a professional Mac photo recovery software.
This post shares how Time Machine and Mac photo recovery software work when recovering photos or other media files. So, let’s get started without further ado!
Probable Reason to Recover Deleted Photos From Mac
There are many reasons you might need to recover photos from your Mac, including:
- Accidental or intentional deletion
- Formatting of the storage drive, partition, or volume
- Virus or malware infections
- Device malfunctions
- File headers becoming inaccessible during macOS updates
- System file corruption
Each of these issues can lead to lost photos, but understanding the cause is the first step toward recovery.
Comparison: Time Machine vs Mac Photo Recovery Software
1. Time Machine
Time Machine is a built-in backup utility feature in MacOS introduced in Mac OS X 10.5 Leopard. It is designed to allow users to create backups of their system files and personal data, such as photos, music, apps, etc., to the attached external hard drive or USB drives. Time Machine can also back up your files to Time Capsule, a network-attached storage (NAS) and wireless router from Apple.
Time Machine creates a backup on an hourly, daily, and weekly basis. Moreover, you can turn off automatic backups and create them manually. This backup can be used to recover deleted or lost photos, videos, music, documents, and other files from your Mac. Moreover, you can use the Time Machine backup to transfer data from old Mac to a new Mac.
Pros:
- Built-in and easy-to-use tool.
- It can recover photos, documents, apps, settings, etc.
- It’s a free tool.
- Allows previewing files before recovering them.
- Supports recovery in various data loss situations
Cons:
- Cannot recover the data if you haven’t set up Time Machine on your Mac.
- You cannot recover the data that is not backed up on the Time Machine backup drive.
- A dedicated external drive or network location is needed to store backup.
- It doesn’t store its backups in the cloud
How to recover photos from Time Machine Backup?
How to Recover Photos or Files from a Time Machine Backup:
- Connect your Time Machine backup drive to your Mac.
- Open the Apple menu and navigate to System Preferences.
- Select Time Machine to access your backup and retrieve your files.
- Use the TimeLine or the Up/Down arrow buttons to navigate to the backup.
- Locate the most recent backup, select it, and find the photo library backup. Click Restore to recover your files.
The Time machine will bring out all those files, which were backed up before and it makes it convenient to access those files in the folder.
2. Mac Photo Recovery Software
If you haven’t enabled the Time Machine backup, or cannot find your file in the Time Machine backup drive, use trusted Mac Photo Recovery software like Stellar Photo Recovery for Mac to restore lost files. This photo recovery tool is safe to download and can restore almost all photos, videos, and audio files from macOS Sequoia 15, Sonoma 14, Ventura 13, and lower versions.
This photo recovery software works in all photo loss scenarios, including emptied Trash, accidental deletion, corruption, system crash, formatting, abrupt system shutdown, virus attack, etc. Mac photo recovery software is compatible with all photos, video, and audio file formats, including RAW, HEIC, MOV, MP4, JPEG/JPG, etc.
However, ensure that you stop using the Mac from which you lost photos to prevent data overwriting. Overwriting reduces the chances of successful photo recovery.
Pros:
- Recover deleted/lost photos, and other media files.
- It is compatible with M1, M2 & T2 chip-enabled Mac system.
- Simple and clean user interface.
- Allows a preview of the recovered files before saving them.
- Allows selective file recovery.
- A deep scan feature is available for better results.
Cons:
- No unlimited recovery in the Free version
Recovering Deleted Photos on Mac with Stellar Photo Recovery
- Download, install, and launch Stellar Photo Recovery on your Mac.
- Open the application, select Photos on the ‘What to Recover’ screen, and click Next to proceed.
· From the ‘Recover From’ screen, choose the drive where your lost photos are stored. Then, click Scan to begin the recovery process.
· The software will begin scanning your drive. Please note that the scanning process may take some time to finish.
· Once the scan is complete, click OK. You can then preview the recovered files to verify their authenticity. To recover a specific file, simply right-click on it and select Recover.
· Navigate to the desired location on your local disk where you’d like to store the recovered media files. Then, click Save.
Which Works Better on Mac?
- If you have set up the Time Machine and maintain regular back up your data, then Time Machine is the best option to recover lost or deleted photo files.
- If the Time Machine backup drive isn’t set up or is corrupt, Mac photo recovery software is your best bet. Moreover, if you have deleted the files from the backup drive or you deleted the files after Time Machine’s hourly backup, then use Stellar Photo Recovery to recover deleted photos.
Conclusion
Both Time Machine and Mac Photo recovery software can be used to recover photos, depending on the situation. Time Machine is the best bet for users who take regular backups and want to restore lost or deleted files from a previous backup. However, for those who haven’t backed up their files or have deleted files from the Time Machine backup drive, Mac photo recovery software is their go-to solution for recovering lost photos.
However, make it your habit to regularly back up your Mac data in a Time Machine backup drive or any other Cloud service to avoid unforeseen data loss situations in the future.
