Uploaded October 2025 | Updated September 2026, 2 weeks ago

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I copied my video footage to the wrong place, deleted it off my Sony camera's SD card, then deleted it from my local computer as well. Can I restore the MP4 video files, or are they toast?

All the info in this video is up on my blog as well—check there for the latest links and any future additions:

jeffgeerling.com/blog/2025/recovering-videos-my-sony-camera-i-stupidly-deleted

Here are the resources mentioned in this video:

- Basic photorec guide: jeffgeerling.com/blog/2019/rescue-photos-and-other-files-sd-or-microsd-card-photorec
- Untrunc (anthwlock's fork): github.com/anthwlock/untrunc
- Ponchio's guide to MP4 files: https://vcg.isti.cnr.it/~ponchio/untrunc.php
- mp4fixer: github.com/bookkojot/mp4fixer
- Disk Drill: disk-drill.com

Support me on Patreon: patreon.com/geerlingguy
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Main Channel: youtube.com/@JeffGeerling
2nd Channel: youtube.com/@GeerlingEngineering

Contents:

00:00 - Oops I did it again
02:02 - photorec scrubs for deleted files
02:58 - MP4 atoms and Sony XAVC moov.mov
04:57 - What I should've done first - dd
07:17 - untrunc to restore MP4
09:47 - Researching MP4 file structure and brute-forcing untrunc
12:42 - Sometimes you just have to pay the piper
14:21 - Disk Drill's advanced camera recovery module
15:55 - Lessons learned