With over 2.9 billion monthly active users, Facebook hosts an enormous number of photos and videos that are uploaded every day. Many users utilize the platform to share personal photos with friends and family. However, there are times when a user may regret posting a certain picture and decide to delete it.
This raises an important question – once a picture is deleted from Facebook, is it gone forever or can it be recovered? The answer is a bit complex.
What happens when you delete a Facebook picture?
When you delete a photo or video from Facebook, it is no longer visible on your profile or page. However, deleting does not immediately remove the picture from Facebook’s servers. According to Facebook’s Data Policy:
“When you delete something, it is no longer visible to other people using Facebook, but copies may remain on our systems for technical and legal reasons.”
Facebook keeps deleted photos and videos for a certain period of time in order to:
- Allow users to recover recently deleted content in case it was deleted by accident
- Comply with legal authorities if required to provide data
- Use the data internally to improve their services
During this time, it is possible to recover a deleted picture through Facebook’s “Recently Deleted” feature, which holds content for up to 90 days before permanent deletion. However, there is still a chance pictures can be recovered even after the 90 day period.
Can you recover permanently deleted Facebook pictures?
If more than 90 days have passed since a picture was deleted from Facebook, it will no longer be available in the “Recently Deleted” folder. At this point, the photos are scheduled for permanent deletion from Facebook’s servers.
However, recovering permanently deleted Facebook pictures is not always impossible. This is because Facebook and other large internet companies take backups of their data regularly in multiple data centers around the world. So a photo marked for deletion could still exist on a backup server.
Trying to recover permanently deleted photos directly through Facebook is very unlikely. But there are a couple of other ways users try to find previously deleted Facebook pictures:
Wayback Machine
The Wayback Machine from Archive.org stores cached, historical versions of websites. If a user’s Facebook profile was publicly accessible in the past, the Wayback Machine may have old copies of photos that were later deleted.
To search for deleted Facebook photos on Archive.org:
- Go to Archive.org
- Enter the Facebook profile URL in the search bar (e.g. facebook.com/username)
- Click on calendar dates to see if they have archives of that profile
- Navigate through the cached profiles to see if any deleted pictures are still available
However, this method is hit-or-miss since the Wayback Machine does not archive every page on the internet.
Google Search
Similar to the Wayback Machine, Google also caches and indexes web pages. So another long shot technique is trying to find deleted Facebook pictures through Google search results.
To attempt recovering deleted Facebook photos using Google:
- Search Google for part of the file name of the deleted photo (e.g. “myprofilepicture2016”)
- Look through search results to see if the photo appears
- If the photo was publicly accessible on a profile or shared album, Google may have an old copy indexed
Still, there is a very low probability of finding a specific deleted picture this way unless it was widely shared.
Can you recover deleted Facebook pictures through data download?
Facebook allows users to download an archive of the data associated with their account through Facebook’s “Download Your Information” tool.
This extensive archive contains a user’s posts, photos, videos, comments, ads interacted with, and more. Some users believe they may be able to recover deleted photos by digging through their Facebook data archive.
Unfortunately, the download only includes photos and videos that are currently available on your Facebook account. Permanently deleted pictures do not appear to be included in Facebook’s data download.
Does Facebook permanently delete photos from servers?
Given that Facebook regularly takes backups, are deleted photos ever permanently erased from their servers? Facebook says they do eventually perform “garbage collection” to remove data that is no longer needed:
“We remove content you delete like posts, photos or accounts. And over time, we delete things you haven’t posted or interacted with for a long time, like search history associated with your account.”
However, they don’t specify exactly when or how content is permanently deleted. Facebook stores a massive amount of data across multiple data centers, so it is very difficult to know if a deleted photo still persists somewhere in their systems.
In 2019, a security researcher discovered that more than 540 million Facebook records were exposed on unprotected Amazon servers, including deleted Facebook accounts, events, groups, and photos that were meant to be deleted:
“What initially got uploaded was a snapshot of a hard drive from an old Facebook worker that contained a backup of some of their systems” – Security Researcher
This shows that even photos that were deleted years ago could still exist on backups if Facebook has not purged them from all their systems.
3 Ways to Better Protect Deleted Facebook Pictures
While it is challenging to completely remove something from the internet, there are some steps Facebook users can take to better protect deleted pictures:
1. Avoid Posting Regrettable Photos
The easiest way to prevent unwanted dissemination of embarrassing, inappropriate, or private photos is to not upload them anywhere in the first place. Always think carefully before sharing photos online.
2. Delete & Report the Photo
If such a photo ends up online, delete it immediately and report it to the platform administrators. Ask others who have shared the photo to remove it as well.
3. Adjust Privacy Settings
Review Facebook’s privacy settings to restrict who can view your content. Change past posts to “Friends Only” or “Me Only” to limit visibility.
Can law enforcement recover deleted Facebook pictures?
What about recovering deleted photos through legal means? In certain circumstances, law enforcement may be able to retrieve deleted content from Facebook by requesting it directly or through a court order.
According to Facebook’s policies, they will provide user data to law enforcement if:
- They receive a subpoena, court order, or search warrant
- They perceive a real risk of harm or a direct threat to the safety of a child
Facebook’s own law enforcement response team reviews requests and provides data in accordance with the law. This could potentially include deleted photos and videos if they still exist on Facebook’s backups and are legally required to share.
Examples of Facebook picture requests
Types of cases where law enforcement may request access to deleted Facebook photos and posts include:
- Criminal investigations – homicide, robbery, fraud etc.
- Finding missing persons
- Providing evidence of a crime
- Establishing timeline of events or alibis
- Identifying owners of stolen property
Facebook received over 50,000 data requests from law enforcement in the first half of 2020. The majority of requests are fully complied with if legal paperwork is submitted.
Can deleted Facebook pictures be recovered by forensic data experts?
Beyond law enforcement, private forensic data recovery services claim they can restore permanently deleted Facebook photos, messages, and other data in some circumstances.
These services utilize advanced data extraction and recovery techniques on devices that may have residual copies of deleted Facebook data. This includes:
- Mobile phones
- Hard drives
- External storage devices
- Backups
- Cloud storage
Even if a photo is deleted everywhere else, parts of the image file could potentially remain on a device’s storage chips. Forensic recovery can piece these fragments together to restore deleted files.
However, full recovery is not always possible. The likelihood depends on:
- How the file was deleted
- Size of the file
- Time since deletion
- Whether device storage has been overwritten
Recovering larger graphic files like photos has a greater success rate than text. But there are still challenges in restoring fragmented deletes, especially from solid state drives.
Facebook picture forensic recovery process
If you wanted to attempt forensic recovery of deleted Facebook pictures, the general process would be:
- Identify devices that may contain the target photo files
- Create a forensic image copy of the device storage
- Analyze the filesystem structures to search for deleted files
- Scan for traces of deleted data and rebuild corrupted parts
- Recover and restore the deleted photo files
This complex process requires proper forensic tools, expertise, and access to the physical storage devices. But for users who have an important photo deleted from Facebook that exists nowhere else, forensic recovery could be the last resort.
Preventing Deleted Facebook Pictures from Being Distributed
For Facebook users who have posted sensitive, private, or compromising photos that have been deleted, removing the picture everywhere it has spread online can feel like an impossible task.
Some options to help minimize further distribution of deleted Facebook pictures include:
Report Copyright Violations
If the image is posted on other websites, report it for copyright infringement or privacy violations to try and get it removed.
Search Reputation Management Firms
Reputation defense companies can try to scrub an image from appearing in search results and assist in getting websites to take down the photo through legal means.
Deactivate Social Media Accounts
Temporarily deactivating associated social media accounts like Facebook, Instagram, and Twitter can help limit access points to a deleted photo.
Online Suppression & Reputation Repair
Online reputation services aim to push down unwanted content in search results so it gets seen by fewer people. They also work to create and promote more positive new content.
While photos released online can never be fully erased, individuals do have options to try and regain control over their digital privacy.
Conclusion
In summary, photos that have been deleted from Facebook are not necessarily gone forever from the internet. While users can remove the images from public view on their profiles, the photo files may still exist on Facebook’s servers and backups for an indefinite period of time.
Trying to recover permanently deleted Facebook pictures presents a major challenge. The methods with the highest likelihood of success include:
- Law enforcement requests
- Forensic data recovery services
- Searching archives on Wayback Machine and Google
But there is no guarantee. The most effective approach is being vigilant about what photos you share online in the first place. Always think twice before posting images you may later regret.