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How to recover deleted iPhone photos, and what is actually possible

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Quick answer: look in Recently Deleted first. Deleted photos and videos stay there for about 30 days. After that, the only places they can still be are an iCloud copy, an old backup on your computer, or somewhere you sent or shared them. Once a photo is gone from all of those, no software can bring it back, whatever its advert says.

1. Recently Deleted on the iPhone (up to 30 days)

  1. Open the Photos app and scroll down to Utilities (on older iOS versions it is under Albums).
  2. Tap Recently Deleted and unlock it with Face ID, Touch ID or your passcode.
  3. Tap Select, choose the photos and videos, and tap Recover.

Recovered items go back to your library exactly as they were. Each item shows how many days it has left, so start with the oldest.

PhotoFroggy shows the same Recently Deleted items on your PC, with their sizes, so you can see at a glance what is still there before it expires. Once you have recovered them on the iPhone, copy them to your PC like any other photo, so they are safe even if they are deleted again.

2. iCloud (if iCloud Photos is on)

With iCloud Photos on, deletions sync, so Recently Deleted is the same everywhere. If the iPhone is lost or broken, go to icloud.com/photos on your PC, sign in, and open Recently Deleted. Anything recovered there comes back on all your devices.

For other kinds of files, icloud.com also has Data Recovery (in account settings), which can restore files from iCloud Drive deleted in the last 30 days, and earlier versions of your contacts and calendars.

3. Deleted messages (iOS 16 and later)

Messages also keeps deleted conversations for up to 30 days. In the Messages app, tap Edit (or Filters) at the top, then Show Recently Deleted, choose the conversations and tap Recover. To keep your messages safe on your PC, see how to export iPhone messages to a PC.

4. An old backup on your computer

If you ever backed up the iPhone to this PC with iTunes or the Apple Devices app, that backup contains your photos and messages as they were on that day, including ones deleted since. On Windows, backups are kept in one of these folders:

Paste a path into the File Explorer address bar to check. Each folder inside is one backup, dated by when it was last changed.

Careful: restoring a backup with iTunes or Apple Devices replaces everything on the iPhone with the backup's contents, so anything newer is lost. Make a fresh backup first, or ask someone experienced before restoring. If the backup is encrypted, you need its password; Apple cannot recover it.

5. Anywhere you sent or shared it

Photos often survive somewhere else: a chat you sent them in (LINE, WhatsApp, Messages), a shared album, an email, or another app that uploads your camera roll, such as Google Photos, OneDrive or Dropbox. It is worth checking each before giving up.

What is not possible

Once a photo has left Recently Deleted and is not in iCloud, a backup or anywhere you shared it, it is gone for good. Every file on a modern iPhone is encrypted with its own key, and deleting the file destroys the key. Even if traces remain in the phone's memory, they are unreadable, and no app can read that memory over a cable anyway.

Programs advertised as "iPhone data recovery" mostly recover from the same places listed above: Recently Deleted, iCloud and old backups. Be wary of any that promise to undelete photos from the phone itself, especially if they ask you to pay before showing what they found.

Never lose photos again

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