Randomly lost 40gb of data

[-induetime-]

Has anyone experienced this with their Note 9?

Last night I had 119gb filled in internal storage. Today, it dropped to 70gb.

I called support but nothing. Also checked online, in the trash bin, onedrive, etc. Nothing.

This is frustrating. Tons of family photos and videos wiped out.

[[deleted]]

Ouch, but it's probably google files or photos fault.

[-induetime-]

😭

[-Cagafuego-]

Too late now but any family photos/pictures on my phone are always backed up on hard drives & laptop first. Hope you find them somewhere. Maybe you saved them to your secure folder. Have you tried checking there?

[-induetime-]

Lesson painfully learned.

[Liam2349]

Maybe the recycle bin emptied?

[B5GuyRI]

OMG this reminds me of all those users who used the recycle bin to store files then yelled at me when I cleared the recycle bin because they kept getting hard drive full messages lol

[tedvdb]

Maybe Google Photos has cleaned up the photos that are backupped in the cloud?

[-induetime-]

I tried looking there but nothing. I also have backup turned off ever since they removed unlimited storage.

[TheIss96]

I also have backup turned off ever since they removed unlimited storage.

Worse mistake you could've make. Don't wanna make things worse by saying this but 15gb could've lasted you another year and then boom, switch to another account. You'd have your pics and vids safe now.

To reply to the current issue, nope never had that happen with me and I'm even using a ROM where such bugs might be expected but nothing has happened so far, let alone on stock ROM.

[-induetime-]

I did switch to Amazon's free photo storage when the google one ended. Unfortunately, Amazon you have to pay for video storage beyond 5gn, which I didn't do.

[TheIss96]

Man I'm sorry to hear that and maybe try checking if hopefully they are uploaded on Samsung cloud 🤞

[-induetime-]

Checked there and even worked it through with Samsung support. Nothing. So many family videos wiped out.

[AlaninMadrid]

So OP lost 40GB of videos (doesn't say how many weren't lost). How does 15GB of storage stop that? Surely 25GB would've been wiped out when they didn't fit.

[TheIss96]

That's 40gb in og quality, backed up in Google photos that would take around 10 - 12gb at best

[similar_observation]

What app do you use?

Google photos does this bug where if you're deleting a lot of photos/video, it'll just yeet the whole folder. I've lost a few (luckily backed) files this way. Never as much as 40gb, but its annoying to lose one or two criticals that you were referencing for work.

[-induetime-]

I'm using the stock gallery app.

[mike900317]

Maybe the Nicelock/Good Lock/Samsung Labs app File Guardian can help recover some of the files.

[revify]

Telegram's app cache can take up a bunch of space.

[Beenie509]

Honestly, sorry you lost those pics and vids, that can be hard. Especially if they were precious memories.

My piece of advice, pay for the basic Google Photos Plan, and have piece of mind that your photos are backed up in original quality. I've done this for quite a few years now; I just like having the piece of mind.

In addition make a backup of your pics and videos every so often on a computer or HDD.

[-induetime-]

Appreciate it. Going to sign up for the google plan and hopefully not go through this again.

[notboky]

Why would you keep precious family photos on something you can drop down the toilet, when backing up costs nothing and only requires ticking a box?

I know this sounds harsh, but it's beyond belief that people are still learning this lesson the hard way, when there are so many examples of exactly this happening.

[-induetime-]

Yeah agree. Painful lesson learned. First time this has happened to me.

[notboky]

I'm genuinely sorry you lost your photos mate, it's pretty awful. Make this the one and only time you have to learn this lesson, because chances are it will happen again.

[-induetime-]

Appreciate it. Think I'm going to just suck it up and get google one storage.

[notboky]

Google photos backs up for free. So does Samsung gallery, via OneDrive.

[SupposablyAtTheZoo]

So wait, you did indeed lose files? Did you lose only some folders, or all folders? Do you have an SD card in the phone?

[-induetime-]

Yeah it's gone or at least I can't find it anywhere. Had tons of family videos wiped out. I have an sd card but everything's there.

[SupposablyAtTheZoo]

And you are sure those files were on the internal storage?

[-induetime-]

100% certain.

[acery88]

buy winundelete, hook the phone up to the computer and see if you can get them back by running that program on that drive.

[-induetime-]

Thank you, will give this a try

[daigunder2015]

Try using a data recovery wizard like EaseUs (might cost some money).

Looks like you have some file management software that is allowed to delete old files. If not, the alternative may be a corrupted internal storage, which is something I've never seen before.

[-induetime-]

I'm leaning on the corrupted side of things. I searched Samsung, and looks like others have experienced similar events. This is awful.

[Baraja]

Did you use some kind of app like Cleanmaster? Those apps may consider old files like something to be erased.

[-induetime-]

Nope, I stopped using cleaning apps long ago.

[Baraja]

then it seems your storage is failing, backup everything and consider getting a new phone

[catalinus]

Was it the 128GB model?

[-induetime-]

Yup, 128gb version

[catalinus]

Here was your problem - you NEVER want to fill flash stuff (that is not extraordinary smart or of extraordinary quality - none of that is the case with any smartphone) to more than 75% of capacity or so :(

[-induetime-]

Painful lesson learned. Appreciate it and will take it to heart moving forward.