When you delete stuff from your phone (pictures, videos etc.) where does all that data go?

Question

When you delete stuff from your phone (pictures, videos etc.) where does all that data go?

In: Technology

Answer 1

Nowhere. Technically the data that makes up those files are still there, the only thing that gets deleted is the entry in the file system index or the directory listing. That is why forensic data recovery services and the law (FBI, NSA etc.) are able to recover data from flash storage and hard drives they seize, even if they’ve been deleted.

The only way to be gone gone is to write over the 1’s and 0’s of the file’s data several times and even the pros can still recover files that have been “wiped”.