Install recoverjpeg with Homebrew, apt, Nix

Project links

• Homepage
• Package manager page

Commands and aliases

• recoverjpeg
• recovermov
• remove-duplicates
• sort-pictures

Project history

Samuel Tardieu created the original recovery program after accidentally overwriting the disk containing his digital-photo archive in December 2004. He rewrote an initial Python approach in C to reduce system calls, recovered thousands of images, tested the utility with friends, and released it under the GNU GPL as recoverjpeg.

The official project credits Jan Funke and Samuel Tardieu. Its scope later included recovermov for MOV recovery plus companion tools for sorting recovered pictures and removing duplicates.

Adoption history

Recoverjpeg became available as a packaged Unix utility and is represented in Homebrew, Debian, Ubuntu, and Nix according to the supplied package metadata. The official project page offers a packaged Unix release as well as the development source.

How it is used

Users run recoverjpeg against a raw device or filesystem image to identify and extract valid JFIF/JPEG data without depending on filesystem directory structures. recovermov provides analogous MOV recovery.

Recovery output can be post-processed with sort-pictures to group photographs by EXIF date and remove-duplicates to reduce duplicate results. Recovery should normally target a separate writable disk rather than the damaged source medium.

Why package nerds care

Recoverjpeg is a classic small Unix recovery utility: it addresses a concrete disaster-recovery problem by scanning raw media rather than relying on intact filesystem metadata. Its long life and availability across several package collections make it a recognizable tool in forensic and rescue-oriented package sets.

Timeline

• 2004: Samuel Tardieu wrote and released recoverjpeg after using it to recover an accidentally overwritten photo archive.
• Later development: The suite expanded around JPEG and MOV recovery and gained companion sorting and duplicate-removal utilities.
• Current packaging: Available through Homebrew, Debian, Ubuntu, and Nix according to the supplied input.

Related projects

• recovermov accompanies recoverjpeg for recovering MOV files.
• sort-pictures organizes recovered photographs by EXIF date, while remove-duplicates helps clean duplicate recovery output.

Sources

• Author's origin story: https://rfc1149.net/blog/2004/12/29/how_recoverjpeg_saved_my_day/
• Official project page: https://rfc1149.net/devel/recoverjpeg.html
• Official repository: https://github.com/samueltardieu/recoverjpeg
• Package availability: source_facts.package-manager