IntactFile

Repair corrupted PSD files — recover the flattened image

The symptom tells you the prognosis. Match your Photoshop file to one of the three cases below and you'll know what's recoverable before you spend anything. Be clear up front: repair brings back the flattened composite image, not your layer stack.

Your file never leaves your device — repair runs in your browser. 0 bytes uploaded.

Your data is the big block — usually intact. What breaks is the small index. Repair rebuilds it.

Drop a file here or browseTap to choose a file

ZIP · Office · PDF · video · JPG · PNG · RAR/7z · SQLite — repaired right here in your browser. Nothing is uploaded

0 bytes uploadedFree: 3 repairs/day — up to 500 MB video, 100 MB docs & archives, 50 MB photos. Free download. Single repair €5.90. No account required.

Short answer: drop a PSD here and the tool sorts it into one of three cases — won't-open (a damaged header or section-length field around intact artwork), truncated (a crash or interrupted save cut off the end), or opens-but-flat (the layer section is damaged but the merged image survived). It runs in your browser: the file is never uploaded, 0 bytes leave your device, and you can confirm that in the browser's Network tab. It repairs the file right in your browser now, recovering the flattened composite — as a PSD, or exported to PNG or JPEG. The honest limits: what comes back is the flattened composite, not your layers, and a truncated tail can't be brought back.

PSD won't open, or opens without layers? Start here

  1. Drop the file
  2. Local read — which of the three cases it is
  3. Honest prognosis, before anything else

Fixing a PSD starts with knowing which section broke. A PSD is a small header plus four length-prefixed sections, and the one users want most — the flattened composite raster — sits last, behind the big, fragile layer section. That layout decides everything: damage to the header or a length field blocks a reader from a picture that's actually intact, while a truncation eats the composite from the end. Where the product stands, plainly: the PSD enginerepairs the file in your browser now; it recovers the flattened composite (and an embedded thumbnail when that's all that's left), never the layer stack. It runs the same way as everything we make: in your browser, pure, no upload.

What broken PSDs look like — three cases

These blocks are illustrations, not screenshots, but if you've got a problem file open right now, you'll recognize yours:

"Not a valid Photoshop document." A corrupt header byte or a flipped section-length field throws a strict reader off — the artwork behind it is usually intact.Best repair odds of the three.
Crash or interrupted save. The composite is the last section, so the tail is gone. Complete scanlines before the cut are salvageable; the rows past it are data that no longer exists.Partial recovery only, honestly.
Opens flat, no layers. The layer section is damaged but the merged composite survived. The flattened image comes back; the layers, masks and effects do not.

Why the cases differ: a PSD is a fixed header(8BPS, dimensions, color mode) followed by four length-prefixed sections — color mode, image resources (which hold a small JPEG thumbnail), the layer and mask section, and finally the flattened composite. Header or length damage leaves the composite intact but unreadable (case 1): re-derive the boundaries and it returns. A truncation eats the composite from the end (case 2): a hard boundary, because the missing rows aren't in the file. And when only the layer section is hit (case 3), the composite is fine — but the layers can't be rebuilt, so what you get is the flattened image.

The errors this covers

Could not complete your request because it is not a valid Photoshop document.

Header or section-length damage — case 1. The composite is usually intact behind it.

Could not complete your request because the file is not compatible with this version of Photoshop.

A desynced parser reading a damaged length field as an impossible value.

Could not complete your request because of a program error.

Photoshop's catch-all — often a truncation from a crash or interrupted save (case 2) that leaves the file structurally incomplete.

Where broken PSDs come from

One pattern dominates: a save that didn't finish.Photoshop or the machine crashing mid-write, a full disk, an interrupted Dropbox / Drive / Creative Cloud sync, or a save to a network drive that dropped — all leave the file truncated, and because the composite is written last, the tail is exactly what's lost. The other source isdata-recovery output: PSDs carved back after deletion, where the tool guessed the boundaries and returned a garbage prefix or the wrong length. Recovery finds bytes; repair makes them an openable image again.

What this can and can't fix

Repairable

  • Header and signature damage — the 8BPS magic and geometry rewritten, cross-checked against the decoded composite
  • Corrupt section-length fields — boundaries re-derived by re-walking the resource blocks instead of trusting the broken length
  • Truncated composite — every complete scanline before the cut is emitted, with an honest count of rows recovered vs expected
  • A damaged layer section with an intact composite — the flattened image is recovered
  • Nothing left but the embedded JPEG thumbnail — extracted as a labeled preview

Not repairable

  • Layers, masks, adjustment layers, smart objects and effects — once the layer section is damaged there's no deterministic reconstruction, and we don't guess; no AI fill
  • Rows past a truncation in a ZIP-compressed composite — deflate can't resync beyond the break
  • Files that read 0 bytes or contain another file's fragments — a recovery problem, not a repair problem

The current honest boundary: today this page tells you which of the three cases your PSD is, and always what you'll get back — the flattened image, not the layers. The composite-recovery engine repairs your file right in your browser now and ships in-browser like everything else we make. The diagnosis is free either way — you'll know the prognosis before anyone asks you for a cent.

FAQ

Can you recover the layers in my PSD?

Honestly, no — and any tool that promises it is guessing. Once the layer section of a PSD is damaged, there is no deterministic way to rebuild the layer stack, masks, adjustment layers, smart objects or effects, so we don't pretend to. What repair recovers is the flattened composite: the single merged image Photoshop saved alongside the layers. That's a real, openable picture of your artwork — just not an editable layered document.

How do I fix "not a valid Photoshop document"?

That message usually means the header or a section-length field is corrupt, not that the artwork is gone. A PSD is a 26-byte header plus four length-prefixed sections; flip one length and a strict reader loses its place and rejects the whole file. The fix is to stop trusting the broken length and re-derive the section boundaries — re-walk the resource blocks, locate the composite from the header — then rewrite a clean file. The flattened image is decodable from the header alone, so this is the best-odds case.

Photoshop crashed mid-save and now the PSD won't open — recoverable?

Often, partially. The flattened composite is the last section written, so a crash, a full disk, or an interrupted cloud sync usually truncates the tail — you lose the end of the file. The good news: the composite is stored per scanline with a byte-count table up front, so repair can emit every complete row before the cut and tell you exactly how many rows survived. You get the top of your image back cleanly; the rows past the cut are gone.

Will repairing lose quality or re-compress my image?

No. The repair is structural: it rewrites the header and section boundaries and passes the composite's pixels through untouched, and where it re-encodes it uses the same lossless RLE the PSD format itself uses — no generation loss. And it never invents pixels: no AI fills a truncated or damaged region with guessed content. What comes back is your real flattened artwork, exactly as much as survived.

Sometimes all I can get is a thumbnail — why?

Because that's genuinely all that survived. A PSD carries a small embedded JPEG thumbnail in its resource section, separate from the full composite. When the composite and layer sections are both destroyed but that thumbnail is intact, extracting it is the only honest recovery left — a preview of the artwork, not the full-resolution image. It's labeled as a thumbnail, never passed off as the real file.

Does repairing a PSD upload it anywhere?

No. PSD repair is pure and designed to run entirely in your browser — 0 bytes leave your device, verifiable in the browser's Network tab. Nothing is sent to a server, so a client's confidential artwork stays on your machine.

Related: JPG photo won't open — repair JPG · iPhone photo won't open — repair HEIC ·verify the zero-upload claim