How to Recover Photos from Locked SD Card

Eleanor Reed

May 21, 2025 • Filed to: Recoverit Topic • Proven solutions

Usually, when we change our mobile phones, we forget to safely remove the SD card and simply eject it to install it onto the new phone. If you had kept your SD card lock enabled in the previous device, you won't be able to access the new device files anymore.

Hence, this article helps you know the right ways to break the locked barrier of the SD card photos and gain access to it.

At times, most people also get their photos corrupted or locked during the transfer of the SD cards or unsafe ejections from the connected devices. It locks the SD card, and the only way to access it without knowledge is to format it. Formatting will erase all your data. Therefore, this article has some practical measures to help you unlock SD cards and retrieve the locked photos.

Part 1: How to Unlock the SD Card?

To unlock the photos stored in the locked SD card, the first step you need to implement is unlocking the SD card. Here are the steps about how to unlock the SD card.

Solution 1: Manual Unlocking of The SD Card

1. The first solution to unlock the SD card is to do it manually. Most of the SD cards come with manual locking buttons on their left side. It would help if you slid it up to change the SD card lock position before installing it onto the device.
2. If the memory card is locked, you cannot access, use, or delete the SD card photos. For most of the SD cards, the lock unlock option is within the system settings that you must access and enable or disable according to your needs.
3. Unlock the SD card to access your photos within it after you insert the unlocked SD card into the device.

Solution 2: Eliminate The Digital Write Protection for Unlocking The SD Card

This method is to implement CMD for unlocking the SD card by eliminating the write protection. Follow the steps mentioned below to do what is required:

1. You must be using an administrator account over the desktop.
2. Connect the SD card to the system by using a card reader or insert it into the laptop's built-in slot.
3. Find the Windows logo on the left bottom side of the screen.
4. Now search for 'Command Prompt' and click on 'Run as Administrator'.

5. Type the commands such "diskpart", "list disk" and "select disk#" one by one onto the prompted box and click enter after each entry.

Remember not to use the double-inverted comma signs as it is mentioned here to distinguish the commands from one another. Replace the '#' in the third command with the SD card number to get 'write protected' error.

6. Once you do that, you will get a prompt saying, "Disk Attributes Cleared successfully". Hence, it is the indication that the SD card is now unlocked from the write protection.
7. If you are not familiar with CMD, you can use any other write protection eliminating tool to do the needful.

Solution 3: Use The Password to Decrypt or Unlock the SD Card

For android phones, there is an option for the users to encrypt the SD card with a password. Most of the users do it to protect their SD card from unwanted access. If you had enabled that sometime while you were using the SD card on your phone, then you might be facing trouble now to use it for accessing photos in other devices.

For most of the devices, people use a third-party tool to encrypt the SD card. In that case, you have to download the app again and decrypt the SD card by entering the password. But if you have used an android phone for encrypting the SD card, then the only way to gain access to your SD card photos is to decrypt it.

Follow these steps below to decrypt the SD card with password:

1. Insert the SD card into the android phone.
2. Select the lock screen and security option in the settings tab.
3. Find the decrypt SD card option on the menu.
4. Please select it and enter the password when prompted to decrypt the SD card.
5. Wait for some time to let the decryption process to complete.

Solution 4: Force Unlock the SD Card by Formatting It

SD Cards, when removed without being ejected from the present device, gets corrupted. In that case, formatting can be the option for force unlocking the SD card. Here are the steps:

1. Connect the SD card to the PC.
2. Open the SD card drive from the 'My Computer' section.

3. You will be prompted with 'Format SD card'.
4. Click on the 'Quick Format' option and let the process complete.

Once done, the SD card will be forcibly unlocked, but you will lose the data within. You can use the SD card as a fresh and new one again and start to store files and use it.

Part 2: How to Recover Files from The Unlocked SD Card?

Solution 1: Recover Files from The Unlocked SD Card On Windows

You need to follow some subtle steps to ensure that you retrieve your lost files or pictures from the SD card after unlocking it. At times, unlocking the SD card might delete the files in the process. So, follow these steps to take the needful:

Step 1. Download and Install

Install Wondershare Recoverit software onto your Windows system and access it.

Free Download | Win Free Download | Mac

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Step 2. Start the Scanning

Insert the SD card onto the system as an external device. Select the SD card drive from the SD Card section on the main page of Wondershare Recoverit. Now, let the tool execute the 'scan' process by pressing Scan.

Step 3. Scan the SD Card

All the images and other files will be recovered from the unlocked SD card and will be displayed on the screen.

Step 4. Scan the SD Card

Now, you just have to search through your necessary files manually or select all and restore it to your card.

You can repeat the process with multiple SD cards if you have any more unlocked ones. But remember that you need to unlock the card first before you can use it for recovering the files. Wondershare Recoverit is one of the best tools meant for the purpose that is easy and convenient to use.

Solution 2: Recover Data from The Unlocked SD Card On Mac

Follow the steps to recover deleted files from SD Card by connecting it to Mac:

• Download the Wondershare Recoverit application of the Mac version and install it on your Mac.

• Now, correctly connect the SD card to the Mac device.
• Once you have connected it, go ahead and access the Wondershare Recoverit application. Click the SD Card tab.

• Select the SD card, and then click Scan to start the scan process.

• After the scan is completed, all the lost files will be retrieved and will be displayed on the left panel of the result section.

• Select the files manually that you want to restore to the unlocked SD card. You can select all the files at once and restore them to the card.

Repeat the process for other unlocked SD cards to retrieve the file over a Mac device. The SD card needs to be unlocked before you can put it for recovering the lost files.

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Closing Words

These are a few of the things you need to keep in mind whenever you get your SD card locked. Once you know the procedure, you will never be stressed about losing your precious SD card data. So, implement these processes as per the steps mentioned.