How to recover the photos you deleted from your iPhone: Header image

Are you ruthless with your iPhone photos, deleting all the shots you don't want to keep on your phone so that things stay organized? With only so much storage space to work with, staying organized is the first hurdle that iPhone photographers face. The downside to being super organized is that there may come a time when you delete something you wish you hadn't.

If you've ever accidentally deleted a treasured photo, you know how anxiety-inducing it can be, and you may be wondering if you can recover deleted photos from your iPhone, how to retrieve deleted photos from a backup, and even how to recover deleted photos from iCloud.

Here are some steps you can take to recover photos that you've accidentally deleted. Step number one — don't panic!

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How to find deleted photos on iPhone

Where do deleted photos go when you tap the trash can on your iPhone? Because we all make mistakes, photos that are deleted from your phone are stored in a recently deleted album, where they are saved for 30 days. In other words, you can breathe your first sigh of relief.

How to recover photos from Recently Deleted

  1. Open the Photos app and tap Albums.
  2. Scroll down to the Other Albums section and tap Recently Deleted.
  3. Here you will find all the photos you've deleted in the past 30 days.
  4. Choose the photo you want to recover and tap Recover. Your photo will be saved in your Photo Library.

Can you recover permanently deleted photos on iPhone?

The short answer to this question is maybe. Whether or not you can recover permanently deleted photos will depend on if your photo was saved in iCloud or if you have a backup from which you can recover your photo. In many but not all cases, it is likely that you will still be able to recover your photo.

How to recover deleted photos from iCloud

If you were signed in to iCloud when you deleted your photo, then your photos will remain on the iCloud platform for 30 days. If, for some reason, you were signed out of iCloud when you deleted your photo, you may be able to retrieve it past the 30-day mark. Visit icloud.com on the web and then follow these steps:

  1. Sign in to iCloud and click on Photos.
  2. Start your search by checking the Recently Deleted folder.
  3. Select the photo you want to retrieve and click Recover.
  4. Depending on how long you've been signed out of iCloud, you may find your photo in your iCloud photo library. Open iCloud and click Photos.
  5. Scroll through until you find the photo you're looking for. Click the download icon at the top of the screen to save the photo to a folder on your computer.
How to get deleted photos back on iPhone

How to retrieve deleted photos from a backup

If you've been backing up your iPhone photos to your Mac, then you may be able to recover your photos that way. To help reduce the risk of losing a photo in the future, here's a tip — back up your iPhone data to iTunes or Finder using a Mac. Apple Support has instructions on how to do this.

The downside to this method is that iTunes only allows you to restore your entire backup, overwriting everything currently on your iPhone. This means you may manage to find your photo, but you also might lose more recent data from your phone.

If you're only looking to retrieve photos, the best way to extract them from your iPhone backup is to use a third-party app. Here's how to retrieve deleted photos from your iPhone using EaseUS MobiSaver.

  1. Download EaseUS MobiSaver and open it on your computer (EaseUS makes this software for Macs and PCs).
  2. Choose Recover from iTunes and then choose your iPhone from the menu and click Scan.
  3. You will be able to preview your lost photos. Choose the ones you want to restore. Then save them to a folder on your computer.

Can you recover permanently deleted photos without a backup?

Okay, so you deleted your favorite photos months ago, and you haven't backed up your iPhone. Have you reached the end of the road? There's one more course of action you can try, and it involves third-party software. PhoneRescue is a professional data recovery tool that can be used as a last resort. The only caveat is that it will work only if your photos haven't been overwritten by other data.

PhoneRescue can be downloaded to your PC or Mac. Plug your iPhone into your computer using a USB port and scan your device for your deleted photos using PhoneRescue. You can restore all of your deleted data, or you can choose to scan only for lost images. You will be able to preview photos before restoring them.

Mistakes happen, and there's a good chance that you will, at some point, accidentally delete a photo before realizing that you want to keep it. Hopefully, the solutions outlined in this article will help with the recovery.

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Tara Schatz

Travel writer. Photographer. Lover of dogs and the outdoors.