Stellar Photo Recovery for Windows: Get Back Deleted Photos and Videos
Stellar Photo Recovery for Windows is a $49.99 one-year program that recovers deleted or lost photos, videos and audio files from memory cards, hard drives and USB drives. It suits photographers and anyone who has just deleted or formatted the wrong card, and the free version lets you recover up to 10 files before you pay.
You format a card you thought you'd copied, or a folder of holiday pictures vanishes from a drive. The files often aren't gone yet, only marked as free space. Stellar Photo Recovery looks for them, shows you a preview of what it finds, and copies the ones you want to a safe place.
Quick facts
- Version: 12.6.0.0, released May 2026
- Developer: Stellar Data Recovery (formerly sold as Stellar Phoenix Photo Recovery)
- Runs on: 64-bit Windows 11, 10, 8.1, 8 and Windows Server 2022, 2019, 2016. A Mac version is sold separately
- Works with: SD, CF and XQD cards, hard drives, SSDs, USB drives, cameras and drones
- Price: $49.99 for a 1-year license on one system
- Free version: recovers up to 10 photo, video or audio files, up to 100 MB each
- What we checked: the installer on Stellar's server (112.4 MB, dated May 28, 2026), the free version's limit on the product page, the screens in Stellar's version 12 manual, and the $49.99 price and 12-month renewal on the order page on November 5, 2026. We didn't run a recovery ourselves, so the results below come from the reviewers' own tests.
Before you buy: stop using the card
Take the card out of the camera or stop writing to the drive as soon as you notice the loss, because new files overwrite the old ones. Then run the free version first. The scan and preview show you what can be found, so you know what you're paying for. Previews have matched results in independent testing, so a file that doesn't preview properly is unlikely to come back in good shape.
The $49.99 license lasts one year and is set up to renew every 12 months, so check your order email if you only need one rescue. Stellar also sells a lifetime license for $89.99 on its own site. The order page may offer an unrelated add-on, which you don't need for the recovery.
Download Free TrialBuy Now
Overview
The program walks you through three screens: what to recover, where to look, and which of the found files to save. You choose photos, audio, videos or all three, pick a drive, and start the scan. There's no setup to learn, and you can stop at the preview without buying anything.
The What To Recover screen, with All Data, Photos, Audio and Videos checkboxes. Disk image and settings options sit in the left menu.
Features
Recovery from memory cards and drives
Stellar Photo Recovery reads SD, microSD, CF, CFast, XQD and other cards, plus internal and external hard drives, SSDs and USB drives. The vendor's list also covers cards from drones and CCTV cameras, and it works on damaged or formatted media where the data hasn't been overwritten.
RAW files from the major camera brands
Stellar Photo Recovery recognizes RAW formats including Canon CR2 and CR3, Nikon NEF, Sony ARW, Fujifilm RAF and Kodak KDC, along with JPEG, PNG, TIFF and HEIC. If yours isn't listed, you can add a file format of your own in the settings.
Scan results sorted by file type on the left, with a Sony ARW file open in the preview window.
Preview while the scan runs
Stellar Photo Recovery shows files as it finds them, in Classic List, File List and Deleted List views. You can pause a scan, look at what's turned up, and recover it without waiting for the end.
Deep Scan, saved scans and disk images
Stellar Photo Recovery's Deep Scan searches by file signature when the normal scan misses something. You can save a scan and come back to it later, and the program's Disk Image menu lets you work from a copy rather than the original drive.
The Recover From screen lists connected drives and physical disks, with the Deep Scan switch at the bottom.
BitLocker drives and drive health
Stellar Photo Recovery can scan BitLocker-encrypted drives once you enter the password, and it shows SMART information such as a drive's health and temperature, a useful warning if the drive itself is failing.
Real-World Uses
- The wrong card got formatted. A wedding photographer quick-formats a card in camera before copying it, and scans it on a Windows laptop that evening.
- A card says it needs formatting. Windows won't open the SD card from a family holiday, so you scan the card rather than format it.
- A drone flight is missing. Clips from a microSD card have gone, and you look for MP4 and MOV files.
- A folder was emptied from the Recycle Bin. Old scans of family pictures were deleted from a PC drive.
Who It's For, and Who Should Skip It
This fits you if your missing files are photos, videos or music, the media still works at least partly, and you want a simple program rather than a technical one.
Skip it if you've lost documents or email, since Stellar Data Recovery is the broader tool for those. Skip the Standard edition if your files are found but won't open, because repair is only in the Professional and Premium editions. If you shoot CFexpress cards, check first, as Neocamera's test found no support for them. And if you're comfortable with a command-line window and have time to spare, the free PhotoRec matched Stellar's recovery results in that same test, only much more slowly.
Usage Guide
- Install the program on a different drive from the one you're recovering, and connect the card or drive.
- On What To Recover, tick photos, audio or videos, or All Data, and click Next.
- On Recover From, select the drive. Turn on Deep Scan if the first scan doesn't find your files, then click Scan.
- Check the results in the list views and open files in the preview.
- Tick the files you want, click Recover, and save them to a different drive. The free version handles up to 10 files, and more than that needs a license.
Where it falls short
- Recovery rates vary widely. Neocamera recovered 66% of files from a quick-formatted card and 25% of JPEGs from a card emptied with Delete All. Photo Review's rule of thumb was that 80% is doing well.
- Very large images can fail. Neocamera got nothing back from a Fujifilm GFX100 II.
- File names aren't always restored. SLR Lounge found that original names and full metadata don't always come back.
- Badly damaged media can take days. Photo Review's scan of a problem CF card was estimated at over 35 hours and was given up on. That was on version 10.
- Standard has no repair. Files that come back damaged stay damaged unless you upgrade.
What Users Say
Stellar Photo Recovery has been reviewed by photography sites more than most tools of its kind, and the tests disagree in useful ways. Simple deletions and formats tend to go well, while corrupted media is hit and miss.
Fstoppers (version 12)
Fred van Leeuwen reviewed it in May 2025 and was enthusiastic: "I would give it a perfect 10/10 for anyone needing to recover their lost data." He called it "a fantastic, user-friendly interface" and wrote "I couldn't report any significant flaws or annoying bugs." A reader, Costas Ganasos, disagreed in the comments: "I tried this with a corrupted SD card and didn't work at all."
Neocamera (version 12)
Neocamera's July 2025 test is the most detailed we found. On a quick-formatted 32 GB SDXC card with 600 images, Stellar recovered 66% of files. On an XQD card emptied with Delete All, it recovered 25% of the JPEGs and 6 of 10 videos in full. PhotoRec, which is free, recovered about the same but took 14 and 45 minutes against Stellar's roughly 6. Neocamera called recovery a draw and rated Stellar the better choice for most people on speed, format support and preview during scanning. Its complaints: the Windows permission prompt on every launch, long file lists that can't be filtered, and a Deep Scan option that appears inconsistently. Stellar supplied the software free, and Neocamera says the company had no input.
SLR Lounge and Photo Review
David J. Crewe tested deleted and formatted cards for SLR Lounge in June 2020 and recovered "every image and video file from the cards I tested." His cons: "Can be slow and resource-heavy while scanning & recovering" and "Does not (always) restore original file names or full metadata".
Photo Review (Australia) scored version 10 at 8.6. "Files that had simply been deleted were always recovered without problems in our tests," it said, though video was only partly successful and playback was "a bit jerky and occasionally distorted." Its summary is a good one to keep in mind: "If you can fully recover 80% of missing files, you'll be doing well."
A hard test: DiskTuna
In July 2019, DiskTuna ran Stellar on three deliberately corrupted cards, and it found nothing in any of them. The author makes a competing tool, JpegDigger, which recovered some files, so read this with that in mind. The fair conclusion is his own: "if one tool can't help you another possibly can."
Trustpilot and Stellar's customers
Stellar's Trustpilot page covers all its products and showed 4.8 out of 5 from about 5,600 reviews on November 5, 2026. Not everyone gets their pictures back: ahmad gave one star on November 1, 2026 ("I fortunately when try to recover my photos didn't get any photo"), and the company replied asking for order and scan details.
On Stellar's own page, Monique Adam writes "Recovered Thousands of Photos from Memory Card with Stellar Photo Recovery", and photographer Alex McCauley writes "Recovered Unrecoverable Corrupted Images in Healthy Format."
The recurring themes: people like the simple screens, the fast scans and the preview. The complaints are partial recovery rates, slow work on large or failing media, and missing file names. Expect anything from a quarter of your files to nearly all of them after a simple mistake, and often less from a corrupted card.
Editions and Pricing
| Edition |
1-year price |
What it adds |
| Standard |
$49.99 |
Recovers photos, videos and audio |
| Professional |
$59.99 |
Repairs corrupt photos |
| Premium |
$69.99 |
Repairs corrupt photos and videos |
The Professional and Premium prices are Stellar's own, as listed on its buy page on November 5, 2026, in an offer that page says runs to November 16.
FAQs
Can Stellar Photo Recovery save photos from a formatted SD card?
Stellar Photo Recovery can recover photos from a formatted SD or microSD card when they haven't been overwritten. Results vary with the card and the kind of format, so check the preview in the free version first.
Can I save recovered photos back to the same card?
Stellar Photo Recovery should save files to a different drive. Writing to the card you're recovering from can overwrite the files you still want.
Does Stellar Photo Recovery work on an Android phone's SD card?
Stellar Photo Recovery works with an Android phone's removable SD card if you take it out and connect it to a Windows PC with a card reader. It doesn't run on the phone, and internal phone storage needs Stellar's separate phone products.
Does the Windows license also work on a Mac?
Stellar Photo Recovery for Windows is licensed for a single system and has a separate Mac version, so choose the right download. One Trustpilot reviewer, Steve, reported ordering Windows and receiving the Mac version.
Is there a refund if it doesn't find my photos?
Stellar's buy page carries a money-back guarantee, and its refund policy sets the terms. The free version's scan and preview are the better test, since they show what can be found before you spend anything.
System Requirements
- 64-bit Windows 11, 10, 8.1 or 8, or Windows Server 2022, 2019 or 2016
- Intel-compatible x64 processor
- 4 GB RAM minimum, 8 GB recommended
- 250 MB of disk space for installation, plus another drive to save recovered files to
Conclusion
Stellar Photo Recovery for Windows is worth $49.99 if the free scan shows your files in the preview: it's fast, easy to use and strong on RAW formats. That's the reason to buy it. The main reason not to is a corrupted card, where results are inconsistent and the Standard edition can't repair what comes back. Run the free version, trust the preview, and pay only if your pictures are there.
Download Free TrialBuy Now