Have you gone on an outing lately, or perhaps had a slip of a hand and now need to know how to transfer photos from water damaged phone? Isn’t it maddening how this happens when you only go to get a glass of water, wash your hands, or have a quick trip to the bathroom?
Mobile devices falling into water are among the highest frequency problems these days, along with broken screens. However, there’s no need to blame or curse yourself too much since most of these occurrences are accidents and just due to the phone getting slippery.
Before acting on the anger, the first thing you must prioritize in such a situation is your phone and its contents’ survival. Since it’s an electronic device, you must immediately find a safe way to take it out of the water or any liquid it falls into.
How To Save Photos From Water Damaged Phone
After the incident and safely fishing your phone out of the water, you must push aside the frustration first and work to see if your phone can still work. Even if it’s still lighting up to the last app you were using, don’t use it yet, as though nothing happened.
Here are some steps you need for a better chance of file, precisely photo recovery.
Step #1. Dry the device extremely well
First of all, your device works with electronic circuits, so you need to take off as much water as possible. You should turn the device immediately and dry it without applying too much heat by wiping or placing it on something that absorbs moisture well.
Turning off the device can cut off the chances of getting parts damaged when electric currents divert the path on the liquid as the power supply gets cut off. For this reason, you must also not try to plug the device if it turns off after getting soaked.
A plain cloth or towel can do well enough for the drying. You must have seen a lot of advice saying to put the phone on a bowl of uncooked rice, which is true.
Any substance that absorbs moisture will do, but the best for this job is silica gel. It is common in laboratories as a desiccant that absorbs moisture during a cooling process.
You should also detach your sim and memory card from the device. Preferably, you should also remove the battery, but current phone designs make this complicated to secure the device.
You don’t have to force open your device for that to avoid further damage. Let it dry in there for about two or three days.
Step #2. Access your phone’s backup
After the thorough drying, you can now check if the device can still turn on. Return the battery first and try from there.
If the device is on, you should check whether the apps are working fine, especially those that require a physical component like the camera, speaker, and microphone. You should also check if the files, especially the photos you’ve taken, are still there.
We recommend you open files from different timelines to ensure none of them are corrupted. If they’re still intact, you need to pull them into a backup system in case the device starts acting up.
If the photos are safely stored in the backup cloud before the water damage, you’ll be fine.
Step #3. Use a data extraction app to salvage your photos
If your device wouldn’t turn on after the drying, you can try accessing your files via other methods. First, plug the memory card into a port, open it on a PC, and transfer the photos.
Other than that, you can get some Data Extraction application installed and use it to salvage photos from your device. They typically work even on devices that aren’t powering up and are pretty straightforward.
The same apps usually have features that recover lost or damaged files, so they’re worth trying. Check this article out describing how to tell if filament is water damaged if you have some in your phone.
If none of these methods work or you’re still reluctant to do it in case you cause more damage, you can always bring your device in for repair and maintenance to your manufacturer. These services can be expensive for certain brands depending on the damage incurred, plus your device has to be in their possession for some time.
Are water-damaged devices gone for good?
The answer to this question depends on the extent and length of time the device got wet; however, most of them can be saved. You may have seen this with devices that fall into rivers or seas where the devices come up still working.
For devices that had been soaked for too long, say a couple of hours, they’re practically gone. Even if the device turns out unusable anymore, that doesn’t mean the same is the fate of the files it contains, though.
If such a thing happens to you, make sure you exhaust all possible ways immediately to do file recovery. The sooner you work with recovery; the higher are your chances of getting the photos back.
If the water accident happened from a flood or something similar, you should read this article about what to do with a water damaged camper trailer next.
Conclusion
Recovery of a wet phone always comes with understanding how to transfer photos from water damaged phone, which, like in biological things, places high value in time-elapsing. Act immediately and carefully on your device as soon as you finish this article.