Stable Diffusion Images Deleted From the Output Folder: Can You Get the Images and Prompts Back?
TL;DR:
To recover deleted Stable Diffusion images and their prompts from AUTOMATIC1111, prioritize retrieving an intact copy of the original PNG file from the Recycle Bin or backups to access its embedded generation metadata.
● Load the intact recovered image into the A1111 PNG Info tab to extract the original prompt, seed, sampler, and step parameters stored within the file.
● Prompt restoration will fail if the PNG metadata was stripped, the file was only partially recovered, or if you attempt to use a derivative image rather than the original output.
● If files were permanently deleted, immediately stop saving new data to the drive and scan the storage with Recoverit Photo Recovery, keeping in mind that SSD TRIM or overwriting can still make the deleted images permanently unavailable.
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In this A1111 recovery question on Reddit, the user deleted generated images from the local output folder to free disk space, then wanted both the images and the prompts back. The safest order is to recover an intact image copy first. Prompt recovery is much easier if the original PNG survives with its generation metadata.
Check for an Intact Image Copy Before Scanning the Drive
If the files are still in the Recycle Bin or another backup location, restore them from there first. If you already copied, uploaded, or archived the original PNG somewhere else, use that intact copy rather than trying to reconstruct the deleted file from storage.
A Recovered PNG May Also Restore the Prompt and Settings
The AUTOMATIC1111 feature documentation says PNG Info stores generation parameters in a PNG text chunk. If you recover the original PNG intact, open the A1111 PNG Info tab and load the image to check whether the prompt, seed, sampler, steps, and other saved parameters are still present.
Important Limit:
Recovering the image does not guarantee recovering the prompt. If the PNG metadata was stripped, the file was only partially recovered, or you only have a derivative image without the original metadata, A1111 may have nothing to read.
If the Output Images Were Permanently Deleted
Stop saving new models, checkpoints, generated images, downloads, or other data to the same drive. If the storage is readable and no intact copy exists, Recoverit Photo Recovery can scan local computer storage for deleted PNG and other image files. Save recovered images to a different healthy drive and verify them before using PNG Info. Recovery is not guaranteed; overwrite and SSD TRIM can make deleted images unavailable even when the filenames once existed.