Mac Data Recovery | How to Recover Photos from Photo Booth on Mac

Photo Booth is a Mac application designed for taking photos and videos using an iSight camera. It was first released in 2005 and was initially exclusive to Mac computers. Currently, it is available for both macOS and iPadOS. Some users might confuse Photo Booth with the Photos app; however, they are two distinct applications.

Photo Booth displays a live camera view, and photos and videos taken with Photo Booth can be added to the Photos app. This article will focus mainly on how to recover lost or deleted photos and videos from Photo Booth. Read on to learn more.

Why are my Photo Booth photos missing?

There can be various reasons why Mac users lose their Photo Booth pictures. Here, we have listed some common ones that you can relate to and try to avoid in the future.

1. Accidental deletion.

Accidental deletion can take many forms. It could be that you accidentally deleted a photo while trying to get rid of an unwanted one, or your Mac shut down unexpectedly while you were editing a Photo Booth picture – either way, you've ended up with a missing photo.

2. Viral attacks.

Computer viruses can damage and delete files. These viruses often hide inside normal program files. You might not realize your Mac is infected until you start losing data.

In the following sections, we introduce you to several methods to recover lost or deleted Photo Booth photos. You can try them one by one until you find your pictures.

Method 1: Undelete from the Photo Booth App

If you deleted a photo from the Photos app and can't find it in the Trash, you might be able to recover it. Here's how:

Step 1: Open the Photobooth application.

2. Choose Edit > Undo Delete.

If you've deleted them multiple times, you can repeat this process to recover the photos.

Method 2: Restore from a Time Machine Backup

If you've already done a bulk delete, or if all of your Photo Booth pictures are missing, restoring from a Time Machine backup is a good bet – provided that you have at least one. It's best to restore from the most recent backup, however, since restoring from Time Machine replaces all the data on your Mac with what was in the backup.

First, shut down your Mac, then connect the Time Machine backup drive to it.

Step 2. Press the Power button and immediately hold down the Option key.

Step 3: Release the Option key when you see the Startup Manager screen.

Step 4: Select the backup disk and press Return.

Step 5: Your Mac will boot to the OS X Install screen. Here, you can choose to restore from your most recent backup.

Method 3: Recover with a Third-party Data Recovery Software

If the above method didn't work, and you don't have a Time Machine backup, you can try a dedicated third-party tool, which usually offer more features and better performance than the built-in Mac utilities, such as the Disk Drill for Mac data recovery app.

In addition to dealing with common data loss scenarios like formatting, virus attacks, or system crashes, Data Recovery Wizard for Mac is also the first tool to address data recovery from encrypted T2 chips. This innovative technology lets you scan and recover data encrypted by the T2 chip on your Mac with just a few simple steps. You can easily and securely get back your lost data.

Download the software from here and follow the instructions to know how to recover photos from Mac.

Note: You can click "Disk Backup" on the left to create a backup first. If your hard drive fails or your photos get accidentally deleted, you can restore them from the backup image.

Step 1: Search for the Missing Photos

Select the location where you lost your precious photos and click on the “Start Scan” button to search for the lost files.

Step 2: Choose the photos you need.

The “Data Recovery Wizard” will immediately scan the selected disk volume. The scanning results will be displayed in the left panel. You can quickly filter out the previously lost images by "Path" and "Type".

Step 3: Recover Lost Photos

Select the photos you want to restore, then click the “Recover” button to get them all back at once.

How to Recover Deleted Files from Mac after Emptying Trash

This tutorial offers practical solutions on how to recover deleted files on Mac with Mac data recovery software, even if you've emptied the Trash.

Bottom line

That's it for how to recover Photo Booth photos on Mac. In general, if you've just deleted your Photo Booth pictures, you can undo the deletion to get them back. If you've backed up your Mac with Time Machine before, then you can choose to restore the latest Time Machine backup. If both methods fail, you can still try a data recovery wizard tool to retrieve your Mac. This tool will scan and find your lost photos as much as possible.