DiskDigger

The trusted data recovery solution.

Here are a few frequently-asked questions about the DiskDigger app for Android:

• Why do some photos recovered with DiskDigger appear lower-quality or pixelated?
  • On a non-rooted device, DiskDigger is limited to recovering images from your thumbnail caches, which means that the images will likely be lower-quality than the original photos or videos. This limitation applies to both the Free and Pro versions of the app, and cannot be avoided. Recovering the full-resolution original versions of the photos or videos is only possible by rooting your device.
    Note: Even with a rooted device, there is no guarantee that the original files will be recoverable, since it's possible for the photos or videos to be fragmented or overwritten by new data.
    Note 2: If the photos are saved on an external microSD card, then you should remove the card from your device and connect it directly to your PC using a card reader, and scan it using DiskDigger for Windows.
• Why is DiskDigger recovering thumbnails of videos, but not the videos themselves?
  • ​See previous answer.
• What is a "rooted" device?
  • Basically, "rooting" allows apps to gain administrative access to your device (what's known as "root access"). For an app like DiskDigger, this is necessary for low-level access to the internal memory of your device, in order to perform a thorough scan of the memory. Without root access, this is not possible to do.
  • By default, Android devices are not rooted for various reasons. Many of them are good reasons, such as reducing the risk of malware (imagine if a malicious app had full access to your internal memory). But unfortunately this also means that well-intentioned apps are blocked from running, as well.
  • For more information, read the Wikipedia article on rooting.
• How do I root my phone or tablet?
  • Click here for the simplest way to root your device. Otherwise, there are various guides and tutorials on the web for rooting most models of Android devices. The rooting procedure varies for different devices, so make sure to search for a tutorial for your specific model. Important: make sure the rooting procedure does not involve wiping your device's memory, since this would defeat the purpose of trying to recover data from it.
• How do I know if my device is rooted?
  • If you don't know, then it's probably not rooted. See previous question.
• My device is rooted, but DiskDigger still can't get superuser privileges.
  • Are you sure the device is rooted?
  • Did you accidentally press "Deny" when the superuser request appeared?
• My device's storage fills up to 100% while using DiskDigger!
  • This can sometimes happen if you turn on detailed logging in the SuperSU app. Please go to the settings of the SuperSU app, and turn logging to the most minimal setting.
• Why does DiskDigger show me photos that I don't recognize / don't remember saving?
  • These are probably photos from your browser cache (from websites you have browsed in the past), or from social media apps that cache images (from user profiles, news stories, ads, etc.) on the device.