Solved! Motorola Moto C - Cancelled moving a folder now cannot find files.

[14LuvMusic]

Hello,
To start from the beginning I connected my Moto C to my laptop via USB to move photos and using file explorer it kept saying there were no files in the folder.
On the phone itself I tried moving the folder to the SD card but decided to cancel the move a few seconds after starting it, however I can no longer find the photos, Google photos is only displaying the photos I have on Google Drive.
Where would these files have gone and is there any way I can recover them?

 

[webworkings]

Try restarting (powering off and back on) the phone and see if they show again.

 

[14LuvMusic]

I have tried power off and power on and also reboot. Still nothing.
All apps are up to date and the system is up to date (android 7.0). Found Astro file manager found a few photos but not everything.

 

[webworkings]

The files wouldn't just vanish. They would be either on the computer or on the phone. Unless it was a delete and not a move, which can happen.

I would suggest searching the computer for the files (search by file type) and have them listed by date, which the most recent showing first. That should help you find them if on the computer.

 

[14LuvMusic]

I moved them on the phone, I went through settings - storage - Moto c - DCIM touch and hold file "camera" then the menu top right "move to..." Then selected a folder on the micro SD card to move to.
After a few seconds I pulled down the status from the top of the screen and touched cancel. When I went to the folder on the SD card 4 pictures has been moved successfully but when I checked the DCIM folder on Moto C it said it was empty, Google photos showed all pictures for a while but now other than what's on Drive its not showing anything else, and nothing in "recent" either.
Would they be in a cache or hidden somewhere?

 

[webworkings]

I am a tad confused here. Did you just move the files from the phone to the SD card while connected to the computer, so that the work was done through Windows rather than moving them through the phone itself?

 

[14LuvMusic]

Sorry, that's my fault, I confused it by mentioning the computer to begin with.

Forget the computer for the moment, I moved it through the phone itself. Not connected to the computer.

 

[webworkings]

I see. OK well a computer may still be helpful here. Searching for files via a phone itself can be quite taxing, and a pain. They really aren't set up for easy searching.

However if you were to connect to a computer via USB cord and using Windows to look for files (the same way you would on the computer itself) you would have a much easier time determining if they are in fact still there or were wiped.

 

[14LuvMusic]

Ok, I'm using Linux Mint which I suppose works pretty much like Windows.
I've done a basic search through folders which hasn't given me anything more, is there any particular search I should do? Or a folder to look into to?

 

[webworkings]

They should be in the original folder, or in the one you chose to move them to. However if not there, then it is going to be just a search of both the phone and the SD card.

You should be able to do a search for a file type rather than looking in each folder individually. Otherwise it will be look through every folder on both the phone and the card.

If they are gone, after all the searching, then the only option is to either try using data recovery software (which is not guaranteed to work) or accept they are gone.

In regard to data recovery...

Note: If you have the backup and sync option turned on, then the following may be of help. https://support.google.com/photos/answer/6128867?co=GENIE.Platform=Android&hl=en


While there is no guaranty that you can get them back. Deleted does mean deleted. There are a few apps/programs out there that 'may' be able to help you recover the data.

A few of the programs you could try would be... DiskDigger, MobiSaver, Android-Recovery and Tenorshare. They are all data recovery apps/programs. There are many others out there, so check around and see which you would rather try. There is also one called RECUVA, that I have heard is free, which you could try.

One important note though, most of these programs are not free. They may say they are "free" or have "Free Trials" and "Free Downloads". Yet to actually recover your data, and get your files back, you may be have to purchase the program/app. Just so you know.

NOTE: For future reference, I really would suggest backing up your data to a computer or cloud. Often. Better to spend the time doing that, rather than to be out all that stuff if the phone dies, things get deleted/erased or it gets stolen.

 

[14LuvMusic]

Ok, I'll give the apps a go.

My plan was to move them to my external hard drive via my laptop but when I plugged my phone in and searched all the folders it just said they were empty.
So I thought I'd move the folder from the phone's internal storage to the micro SD onboard the phone, take the card out and connect that to the laptop, but that's where everything went wrong 😅.

Thank you for your help anyway, I'll let you know if I have any success.