How to check if a photo is corrupted

A practical troubleshooting guide · reviewed 15 October 2026

Make a working copy first

Do not overwrite, rename in place or repeatedly re-save the only copy that will not open. Copy it to a separate test folder and keep the original unchanged. If the file is on a memory card or a drive that is disconnecting, avoid further writes to that device until you have another copy.

Check access and file completeness

Confirm the file is not still being copied, cloud-synced or edited by another application. Check whether Windows can read it and whether the file size is unexpectedly zero or much smaller than a known-good copy from the same camera or export. A filename extension such as .jpg does not prove that the bytes inside are a complete JPEG.

Try opening a copy in another trusted viewer that supports the format. If one viewer fails and another opens it, the first application may lack a codec or may have its own limitation. Different Windows PCs can have different optional image codecs installed.

Compare against a known-good copy

If you have an earlier backup, compare the file contents rather than relying on matching names or dates. In PowerShell, this command reports a SHA-256 digest:

Get-FileHash "C:\Photos\image.jpg" -Algorithm SHA256

Run it on both copies. Matching hashes mean the bytes are identical; they do not prove that the image decodes correctly. Different hashes are not proof of damage either: an edited, resized or re-encoded photo can legitimately have different bytes. For a careful backup comparison, see the photo backup verification guide.

Use an image decoder, but read the result carefully

A complete decode check can show that a supported image stream cannot be read by the codecs available on that Windows PC. Some formats also provide internal structure checks, such as PNG chunk CRC validation. These checks can find certain errors; they cannot reconstruct missing pixels or prove that a file is the version you intended to keep.

Fix My Photo Library's Inspect Images tool checks supported formats locally. It reports decoding problems and limitations; it does not repair image data. For more detail, see the broken-photo FAQ.

What to do next

1. Keep the original and make a separate copy before testing.
2. Stop other applications from changing the file while you compare it.
3. Check a trusted backup or earlier version and verify the candidate copy independently.
4. If a healthy backup exists, recover to a separate folder; do not overwrite the only source.
5. If no readable copy exists, preserve the original and its storage device. A decoder report is not a repair.