Sometimes you click some pictures on your phone that you don’t want to keep or you receive them from someone on apps like WhatsApp, Messenger, or Instagram and don’t want to keep them in your gallery. You can simply delete those photos from your phone in such cases, but you know those can be recovered using some tricks. So here I am going to tell you ways to permanently delete photos from your Android phone.
Also, read | 3 Ways To See Already Deleted WhatsApp Messages, Photos, and Videos
Ways to Permanently Delete Photos from Android
You can delete these photos from your gallery app and then from the bin or trash that comes with your default app or you can use a third-party app to delete these apps.
1. Delete From Bin or Trash
This is the basic option which we all probably know but still to those who are unaware, there is a Bin or Trash folder in your phone’s gallery which keeps the photos when you delete them from Gallery. So you should clear this folder after deleting the photos, just like the recycle bin on PCs. Here’s how you can do this on Google Photos:
1 Open Google Photos and go to the Library. From there open the folder from where you want to delete the photos.
2. Now, select the photos and then tap on the delete icon in the above right corner and then tap on “Move to Bin” at the bottom.
3. Your photos will be deleted from the gallery and will be moved to Bin. Now go to the home page of Photos and then select the “Bin” option from the above four categories.
4. In the Bin, tap on Select and then choose Delete All from the bottom.
That’s it. Now your photos will be deleted permanently from your phone and account and cannot be recovered easily. however, there are still chances that come experts can do this. So let’s move to the next trick.
2. Shreddit – Data Eraser
This is a third-party app that lets your “shred” your data from your Android phone and that cannot be recovered after that. Here’s how to use this app.
1. Download the Shreddit app from Play Store and install it.
2. Now open it and give storage permission to it.
3. After that, it will show all the folders on your phone, and from there open the folder in which you have photos to be deleted.
4. Now select the photos and then tap on a list-like icon below and then tap on Ok on Confirm Shred pop-up to confirm.
Your photos will be deleted but you will also need to clear your gallery app’s data and cache so the thumbnails of those photos won’t’ appear there.
3. Factory Reset
This should be the last resort and for cases like when you want to sell your phone to some unknown person. A factory reset deletes everything on your phone, but then again this data can also be recovered. So if you want that no one can recover your data even after the reset, first enable encryption on your phone and then reset it.
Note: Since this option will delete all data on your phone, you should keep a backup on your data that you do not want to lose.
1. Open Settings and then tap on Security.
2. Select the Advanced option there and tap on Encrypt & credentials.
3. Now, tap Encrypt phone again to proceed. Some people have noted that at times this doesn’t work right away, and you might need to try it a few times.
4. The process can take a long time so connect your phone to the charger. Once this is completed, go to Settings > System.
5. Tap Advanced and then choose Reset options. From there tap on Factory data reset.
6. Next, select Delete all data and you’ll see a warning screen on which you can tap Reset phone to continue.
That’s it. This process will take a few minutes and your phone will restart to the factory version. So, you’ve basically deleted all the data on your Android phone including those photos that you don’t want anyone to see.
Bonus Tip: MicroSD card
If your phone has a microSD card, you can either remove it and simply insert it in another phone or keep it somewhere, and that way you can save your personal data like photos, videos, etc. without deleting them.
But if you want to keep using the card for some reason then you should format it to erase all the data on it. Also, don’t forget to back up the data that you want to keep.
So these were the ways to permanently delete photos from your Android phone. We hope you may find these useful and for more such tips, stay tuned!
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