How to Extract Photos from a Phone That Won’t Turn On

The way you’ll need to recover your photos changes based on the type of damage or problem your phone has. A cracked screen is one type of situation to work through, and water damage is different. A phone with a dead battery needs a different strategy than one that has a corrupted operating system.

Each one of these problems calls for its own recovery method, and what helps save the photos from one type of damage could be useless if you have a different issue!

Let’s go over the methods that’ll help you to recover those memories!

Simple Steps to Try First

Your phone might look dead. But a handful of basic troubleshooting steps can save you from trying anything too hard. These checks are always worth doing first, and your device probably just needs a little help to wake back up.

A force restart is probably your best option. The exact process changes a little based on your phone model. But most devices will respond when you hold down the power button and one of the volume buttons at the same time for about 10 to 15 seconds. You might not see anything happen and it can be frustrating. Just hold those buttons down for the full time anyway - it takes a while.

Check your charging setup for any problems. Usually it’s not your phone at all - it’s either the cable or the adapter that’s gone bad. Try a different cable first. Swap out the adapter too when you have another one around. After you’ve changed them, leave your phone plugged in for at least 30 minutes or so. A drained battery can take a while before it shows any response and the charging icon might not appear for a while. This part takes a bit of patience on your end.

Water damage is a bit different and requires a different strategy. Find a container and fill it up with either uncooked rice or silica gel packets (whichever you can get your hands on) and then place your phone inside of it for at least 24 to 48 hours. The rice or gel will work to absorb the moisture that’s likely trapped inside your device and that moisture is probably what keeps it from turning back on. A little water on your phone doesn’t automatically mean it’s ruined past repair.

Usually at least one of them will do the job. They all take a little time and you might feel like you’re just sitting around.

Connect Your Phone to the Computer

A dead screen doesn’t mean the phone itself is broken. The display and internal parts are separate systems and they can fail independently. The main parts (the processor, memory and core hardware) can work fine even when the screen won’t turn on. As long as the processor is active and the phone can power on, everything inside can still work normally even if the display shows nothing.

The easiest way to start is by connecting your device to your computer with a USB cable. Windows users can go ahead and open File Explorer and watch for a new drive that should show up in the list. Mac users can do the same in the Finder to see if a new device shows up there. After you’ve plugged everything in, be patient for a minute or two. Sometimes it takes a little while for your computer to actually pick up what you just connected.

Most phones are going to prompt you with a message on the screen before your computer can access any files. The device needs your permission first (for basic file transfers or USB debugging) and it will just wait there until you tap the confirmation button on the display. With a dead screen though, you can’t tap anything at all. At that point this won’t work.

Older Android phones are usually a lot more relaxed with authentication and security checks. You can usually connect to them and move data without needing to confirm so many steps along the way. Authentication is less demanding on these devices. Newer phones work differently altogether and each one comes with a few security features layered on top of one another. Those features do a great job at keeping your personal information safe from computers that shouldn’t have access to it. This extra protection is great if privacy is your main concern. But it can become a big problem if you actually need to get past the locked screen.

On occasion, some users find that their phone connects automatically without asking first. When this happens, it’s usually because the permission settings were already adjusted to allow automatic connections. Maybe you changed these settings months ago and forgot that you did it. For most users though, their phones have default settings that ask for approval each time.

Give it a few minutes to see if anything pops up on the computer screen. You won’t be able to move forward with the cable option. The damage to your screen is blocking the approval step. At this point, it makes a lot more sense to try a different recovery option instead of trying to work with the cable.

Check Your Cloud for Missing Photos

If the USB connection isn’t working out, the next place to check would be in your cloud storage. Most phones back up photos automatically in the background and chances are yours has been doing this for a while without you realizing it.

When you get a new phone, the setup process usually asks if you want to turn on automatic backups from the start. Android phones use Google Photos for this and iPhones use iCloud to get the job done. Most of us just tap through those first screens without paying much attention to it and then we forget that we ever turned it on.

Log into these services from a different device to check what’s actually been backed up there. Open the Google Photos website or go to iCloud.com and sign in with the same account credentials that you normally use. A backup that’s a few months old might not be perfect. But it’s still much better than losing your photos permanently.

Google and Apple usually get most of the attention for photo backups. But they’re not your only options out there. Microsoft OneDrive and Dropbox also have photo backup capabilities built right in and there’s a decent chance you turned one of these features on at some point and forgot about it. Your phone carrier may have something too - most of them include some form of cloud storage as part of your monthly plan. Verizon Cloud and AT&T’s cloud backup are examples of services that will automatically back up your photos in the background and lots of times you won’t even know that it’s happening.

Cloud backups have one big benefit - everything gets stored independent of your phone itself. Your phone could get run over, dropped in water or just refuse to turn on one day. None of that matters because your photos are already saved somewhere else completely. As long as you can get to a computer or tablet with an internet connection, you’ll be able to access every one of them.

Once you finally find your photos in a backup somewhere, go ahead and download them right away so you have a local copy saved on your computer or another device. This way you’ll have a safe version to hold onto as you work out what you should do with your broken phone. Cloud backups don’t always have everything in them though and you can still try a few other methods to get your photos back if your cloud storage doesn’t have what you’re looking for.

Storage Options Available for Your Phone

When your cloud backups fall short or just don’t have everything you’re looking for, another option to think about is the phone’s physical storage. Quite a few Android phones have removable microSD cards, and those little cards are where all your photos and other files actually live. The process of working with these cards is pretty simple and doesn’t need any technical knowledge or expertise. Remove the card from the phone (it usually pops right out) and then connect it to your computer with a card reader - they’re inexpensive to find.

It sidesteps your broken phone since the card reader connects directly to your SD card. On most phones, you’ll find a small slot somewhere along the edge (usually on the side or top) and a small tool or a bent paperclip will pop the tray right out. When you connect the reader to your computer, it’ll detect the card almost right away and from there you can copy all your files over to safety.

The memory isn’t something you can remove on your own. Most of the newer phones on the market have sealed storage. Your photos are stored on chips that have been soldered directly to the phone’s logic board at the factory, so it’s not like you can just pull them out yourself. When your phone has this sealed design, you’re going to need more advanced data recovery methods to get anything back and you usually need some pretty special equipment for it.

A handful of repair shops out there can do something called chip-level data recovery, or sometimes they’ll call it a logic board swap. In either case, this type of work is very delicate and you need a technician who knows what they’re doing with these small parts. The technician will actually remove the storage chip from your broken phone and transplant it onto a working device. Or they might use special equipment that can read the data straight from the chip without having to move it at all. Either way works. But it can be tough to find a shop qualified for this micro-soldering work since it takes a steady hand and plenty of experience.

Most repair shops will charge you between $200 and $500 for this service, and the final price depends on the phone model that you have and how bad the damage is. I know that probably sounds like a lot of money. The cost comes from the advanced training and expensive equipment that technicians need to pull off this delicate work. It’s also worth remembering that there’s always at least some chance involved with these repairs (if something goes wrong during the process, you could lose your data permanently).

Before you decide what to try next, it’s worth taking a minute to work out what type of storage your phone uses. Plenty of older devices and budget-friendly models still use removable storage cards that you can swap out or upgrade whenever you want to. Most flagship phones released in the last few years have moved to sealed internal storage where everything is permanently built into the device.

What You Can Expect From Recovery Services

Sometimes your phone gets damaged in ways that are past what you can do on your own. Water damage and hardware failures are two of the most common problems, and when one of them strikes, you’re locked out of your storage unless you bring in a professional. Data recovery services are designed specifically for these kinds of situations.

Services like DriveSavers and other data recovery companies work on badly damaged phones every day. The technicians at these places have access to professional equipment and cleanroom environments, so they can extract data from phones that look destroyed. How much data gets recovered depends quite a bit on what type of damage your phone received. Hardware failures are usually easier to fix. But water damage can be less predictable and much harder to recover from.

Professional data recovery services will run you between $300 and $1,500 on average. The price can change quite a bit because every phone situation is different - some devices need just a little bit of work, and others take a lot more time and effort to get into. Most of the trusted services out there will give you what’s called a “no data, no fee” guarantee and that means you’ll only have to pay them if they recover your photos and files successfully.

Most services will get a diagnostic evaluation where they see what went wrong and check if your files can even be salvaged. Once they know what they’re working with, they can move forward with the recovery work itself. If the recovery goes well, your data gets transferred back to you on an external hard drive or another storage device that you can take home with you.

Standard service usually takes about 5 to 10 business days from start to finish and it’s what most customers go with. Rush options are available if you’re working on a tighter timeline and need your photos back sooner. Rush service does add some extra cost on top of the base price though.

Before shipping your phone off to any company, it’s worth taking a few minutes to dig into their reviews and actually read what their policies say about customer data. Your privacy is on the line here, and you should make sure it’s a service that treats your information the right way and deletes everything once the handoff is done.

Trade Your Old Phone for Cash Today

A phone that won’t turn on doesn’t automatically mean your photos are lost forever. Sometimes it’s as simple as checking your cloud backup to see if everything uploaded like it should. Other times, it might need a trip to a data recovery specialist who can pull the files off of a damaged device. In either case, you have a few options that are worth trying out before giving up on those memories. My advice is to work through each fix systematically and always try the easiest and least expensive fixes before you move on to anything more involved or expensive. That will take less time and money and has the best possible chance of recovering your photos without piling extra stress on top of an already frustrating problem.

Smartphones have plenty of built-in backup and recovery options that many users don’t know about, and these features can save your photos even when your phone looks dead. Your photos might already be safely stored in the cloud, and you just didn’t know it was turned on. Or maybe there’s a memory card tucked inside of your phone that you forgot about. Professional data recovery is always an option too, and the great news is that most specialists can pull your photos off of the device as long as the storage chip inside wasn’t physically damaged or destroyed. It’s worth taking a breath before you panic, because rushing to conclusions won’t help you in this situation.

Once you have all your photos recovered and backed up somewhere safe, you’ll still have that broken phone to take care of. Maybe you’ve been thinking about an upgrade anyway, and at this point, your old phone has probably done all it can do. 

At ecoATM, we have kiosks all over the country (over 6,000 of them actually) where you can trade in your old device and walk out with cash on the same day. The kiosk runs a quick diagnostic on your phone, gives you a price and you can choose between cash or an electronic payment right then and there. That makes recycling your old tech pretty painless, and you’ll get some money to put toward whatever phone you buy next. You can look up the nearest kiosk location online and even get an estimate of what your old phone could be worth before you make the trip!