RECOVERJPEG(1)

💾 RECOVERJPEG(1) — the recoverjpeg manual, bestie edition 💅

okay so. you know how your memory card just. died? like full on said "no <3" and took your camera roll with it? yeah. this is the girl who fixes that. recoverjpeg goes digging through a filesystem image and pulls your jpeg pics back out of the wreckage. she's not a wizard, she's just very thorough. 🧚

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✨ NAME ✨

recoverjpeg — recover jpeg pictures from a filesystem image 🎀

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🌸 SYNOPSIS 🌸

recoverjpeg [options] device

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🦋 DESCRIPTION 🦋

So here's the vibe: recoverjpeg is out here trying to identify jpeg pictures hiding inside a filesystem image. How? She scans the filesystem image and goes looking for a jpeg structure at blocks that start on 512 bytes boundaries. That's it, that's the whole treasure hunt. 🔍

The salvaged pics get stored under the name imageXXXXX.jpg by default, where XXXXX is a five digit number starting at zero. And like, if you somehow have more than 100,000 recovered pictures (main character numbers honestly), recoverjpeg will start using six figure numbers and more as soon as needed — but note that the 100,000 first ones will still use a five figures number. The options -f and -i can override this whole behaviour, if you're feeling custom. 💖

recoverjpeg stores the recovered pictures into the current directory. If you want them to land somewhere else, just go to the directory you want recoverjpeg to save the images into (using the cd command at the shell prompt, you know the one) and start recoverjpeg from there — or, easier, use the -o option. Your call, bestie. 🫶

Also important: device is not necessarily a physical device. It may also be a file containing a copy of the faulty device, which is lowkey genius because it reduces the actual processing time and the stress imposed on an already defective hardware. dd(1) or ddrescue(1) may be used to create such a working copy. Be kind to your dying hardware, she's been through enough. 😭

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💅 OPTIONS 💅

• -h — Display an help message. short, sweet, informative. ✨
• -b blocksize — Set the size of blocks in bytes. On most file systems, setting it to 512 (the default) will work fine, because any large file will be stored on 512 bytes boundaries. Setting it to 1 maximizes the chances of finding very small files if the filesystem aggregates them (UFS for example) — at the expense of a much longer running time. so like, slay but also good luck. 🕰️
• -d formatstring — Set the directory format string (printf-style, default: use the current directory). When used, 0 will be used for the 100 first images, 1 for the 100 next images, and so on. The goal of this option is to circumvent the directory size limit imposed by some file systems. niche but iconic. 👑
• -f formatstring — Set the file name format string (printf-style, default: “image%05d.jpg”). It is used with the image index as an integer argument. 🎀
• -i integerindex — Set the initial index value for image numbering (default: 0). ✨
• -m maxsize — Maximum size of extract jpeg files. If a file would be larger than that, it is discarded. The default is 6 MiB. 🚮
• -o directory — Change the working directory before restoring files. Use this option to restore files into a directory with enough space instead of the current directory. This option can be repeated. 🔁
• -q — Be quiet and do not display anything. the silent treatment but productive. 🤫
• -r readsize — Set the readsize in bytes. By default, this is 128 MiB. Using a large readsize reduces the number of system calls but consumes more memory. The readsize will automatically be adjusted to be a multiple of the system page size. It must be greater than the maxsize parameter. > ⚠️ yes that's a requirement, not a suggestion, don't test her. ⚠️
• -s cutoffsize — Set the cutoff size in bytes. Files smaller than that will be ignored. tiny files, begone. 🦋
• -S skipsize — Set the number of bytes to skip at the beginning of the filesystem image. This can be used to resume an interrupted session, in conjunction with -i. The number of bytes may be rounded down to be a multiple of a memory page size in order to improve performances. interrupted? we resume. 💪
• -v — Be verbose and describes the process of jpeg identification. By default, if this flag is not used, recoverjpeg will print a progress bar showing how much it has analyzed already and how many jpeg pictures have been recovered. so satisfying to watch ngl. 📊
• -V — Display program version and exit. bye bestie 👋

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All the sizes may be suffixed by a k, m, g, or t letter to indicate KiB, MiB, GiB, or TiB. For example, 6m correspond to 6 MiB (6291456 bytes). math girlies rise. 📐

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🌈 EXAMPLES 🌈

Recover as many pictures as possible from the memory card located in /dev/sdc:

recoverjpeg /dev/sdc

Do the same thing but ignore files smaller than one megabyte:

recoverjpeg -s 1m /dev/sdc

Recover as many pictures as possible from a crashed ReiserFS file system (which does not necessarily store pictures at block boundaries) in /dev/sdb1:

recoverjpeg -b 1 /dev/sdb1

Do the same thing in a memory constrained environment where no more than 16MB of RAM can be used for the operation:

recoverjpeg -b 1 -r 16m /dev/sdb1

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💜 COPYRIGHT 💜

Copyright (c) 2004-2016 Samuel Tardieu <sam@rfc1149.net>. This is free software; see the source for copying conditions. There is NO warranty; not even for MERCHANTABILITY or FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE. 🫶

If recoverjpeg saves your day and you liked it, you are welcome to send me the best rescued ones by email (please send only 800x600 versions of the pictures) and authorize me to put them online (indicate which contact information you want me to use for credits). like, genuinely, he wants your pics. cute. 🥹

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👑 SEE ALSO 👑

recovermov(1) sort-pictures(1) remove-duplicates(1)

the friend group. all icons. 🌟

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💀 KNOWN BUGS 💀

Recoverjpeg does not include a complete jpeg parser. You may need to use sort-pictures afterwards to identify bogus pictures. Some pictures may be corrupted but have a correct structure; in this case, the image may be garbled. There is no automated way to detect those pictures with a 100% success rate.

not me discovering that some of the rescued pics are just cursed static. 😭 structure checks out but the picture is giving abstract art. nobody can fully catch those, fr fr.

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🎀 AUTHORS 🎀

Samuel Tardieu <sam@rfc1149.net>. 💖

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and that's the whole page, bestie! this is the Recoverjpeg User Manuals from November 12, 2016, so go forth, rescue those pics, and remember: back up your stuff next time. mwah 💅✨🦋