CR2 Photo Recovery: How to Recover Lost CR2 Photos

Eleanor Reed

Jul 01, 2025 • Filed to: Photo/Video/Audio Solutions • Proven solutions

Can I Restore Deleted Pictures?

Canon is one of the most popular digital cameras, your photos in Canon digital cameras might get corrupted or inaccessible, so you'd better backup the important photos. Deleted or lost photos due to accidentally deleting, formatted, or corrupted SD card, human errors, then you need to do CR2 photo recovery.

First, please make sure you do not save any new data on your camera SD card or take new photos after finding all CR2 files deleted. If the data is overwritten, getting your deleted photos back will be hard. You will need a powerful deleted photo recovery software to help you recover deleted CR2 back. In the following guide, we will offer the best way to recover deleted or lost CR2 files from Canon camera.

Part 1. The Powerful CR2 Image Rescue Software

To do deleted or lost camera photo recovery, we recommend the Recoverit Data Recovery program.It is a reliable and safe image rescue software to keep your data private and secure. It can easily and effectively help you recover any data with a high success rate.

Besides recovering lost or deleted CR2 files, Recoverit image software can bring back deleted photos in JPG, JPEG, GIF, PNG, PSD, etc. It can also be used to retrieve Office documents, emails, audio, videos, and so forth.

Recoverit recovers data in different types, including other formats of photos and videos.

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Part 2. How to Recover Deleted or Lost CR2 Photo Files

For those wondering how to recover CR2 files from the SD card, we offer both video and text tutorials to help you rescue CR2 images easily and quickly. Keep reading and get the solution instantly.

1. Video Tutorial on How to Recover Deleted or Lost Pictures in Windows?

Regardless of the image formats like CR2, Recoverit Image Rescue makes it possible to recover deleted CR2 photos from the SD card.

2. How to Do CR2 Photo Recovery?

Free download and install Recoverit Image Rescue on your computer. This tutorial will perform photo recovery with the "External Devices Recovery" data recovery mode. Connect your Canon camera or memory card to the computer and follow the next steps to rescue lost CR2 image files.

Step 1. Select the device where you lost CR2 files

Make sure the computer detects your Canon camera or memory card. Click "Next" to select your target device and click the "Start" button to start scanning.

Step 2. Scan your camera storage device

Recoverit Image Rescue will start a quick scan. After the first scan, if you can't find your deleted CR2 files, you can go to scan again with the "All-around Recovery" mode. It will deeply search your deleted photos but take more time.

Step 3. Preview and recover lost CR2 files

• When the scan is completed, the lost CR2 files will be listed here for you to retrieve.
• You can preview the CR2 files, pick up what you want to recover, and click the "Recover" button.

Following the simple steps can help you get back deleted photos. Recoverit Data Recovery is the perfect solution to help you recover deleted CR2 files back. Download and try it for free now.

Part 3. How to Repair Corrupted CR2 Files?

After a data recovery process, if you find out that the CR2 photo is corrupted, don’t worry. You can effectively repair these corrupted CR2 files and recover your valuable photos. Repairit is a reliable tool that not only fixes corrupted JPG files but also supports various other photo, video, audio, or document file formats.

Steps to Repair Corrupted CR2 Photo Files Using Repairit:

Step 1. Download Repairit CR2 file repair tool on your computer, and launch it.

Step 2. Go to the Photo Repair section, and click the +Add option to upload the corrupted CR2 file.

Step 3. Then, click the Repair button to initiate the file repair process.

Step 4. When the process completes, you can click the file to preview the result. If you’re satisfied with it, tap on Save to download the repaired file to a desired location.

Part 4. What Is a CR2 File and How to Open CR2?

CR2 file extension is a RAW image file format created by a Canon digital camera. This file format contains minimally processed data from the image sensor of a digital camera.

1. What Program Can Open CR2 Files

There are many programs that can be used to open and view CR2 files on Windows or Mac computers. We list the most common CR2 programs for you.

2. How to Open CR2 Files in Photoshop

The steps for opening CR2 files are pretty simple as A-B-C. Of course, you can always use Windows Photos viewer or Photoshop app to view RAW files. Here, we show you how to open CR2 files in Photoshop.

In this way, you can open the CR2 file in Photoshop easily. You can also use the below method to open CR2 files in Photoshop or different photo viewers like Microsoft Windows Photos.

If you always want to view CR2 files in a specific photo viewer, you can choose "Choose another app," check the box "Always use this app to open .cr2 files," and click "OK." Your computer will always open CR2 files in the app through the configurations by default.

You can learn how to recover CR2 photos and some additional information about CR2 files from the above. Whenever you lose your image files, trust Recoverit Photo Recovery. The professional image recovery software can be a nice option for recovering lost files.