How to Recover Deleted Photos on iPhone

Losing photos from an iPhone is like some chapters of your life story just fell out of a book. You are looking at what is, in fact, your history, and then all of a sudden a large group of those pictures are gone. Maybe a mis-tap, maybe you cleaned out storage too aggressively, or maybe iOS went crazy for some secret reason which the company doesn’t like to talk about. The good news? On an iPhone, deleted photos don’t really stay deleted forever. What the device has at your disposal to get them back is multiple as a first line of defense; also, there are a few extra tips that can help when all else fails.

This guide takes you through all the practical steps in recovering deleted photos from your iPhone in detail and also which method we explain works. Don’t panic. With some patience, you will usually get those memories back.

1. Start with the “Recently Deleted” album.

The Formerly Removed album. Imagine it is a storage in which items are out for 30 days.

When a photo is deleted on iOS, what in fact happens is it is tagged for removal, which is to take place at a later time, and the photo is put into a sort of temporary holding. As for a period of 30 days (which may be 40 in some regions or per your iCloud settings), your chance of recovery is very high, which is to say a tap away.

How to check and restore:

1. Open up Photos.

2. Go to the Album section.

3. Scroll down to Utilities and tap Recently Deleted.

4. Review the photos and choose which ones to return.

5. Tap back into your account, then confirm.

If your photos show up there, you’re a winner. They will jump back to your primary library as if they had never left. But if they’re not present there, do not give up; there is still more you can do.

2. Restore Pictures from iCloud Backup.

If the images are gone from the Recently Deleted album, go to your iCloud backup history. Many iPhone users have iCloud backup turned on, which they may not even be aware of; that is great in a time like this. If your device made a backup before the pictures went missing, try restoring from that backup, which may put the photos right back.

Restoration of a backup to an iPhone will put back the original data, which removes what may have been added after the backup—like apps, messages, files, or photos. Thus, it is a choice to see if the trade-off is worth it for what you get out of the restoration, which may include loss of some of your recent items.

How to check your last backup:

1. Go to Settings.

2. Click your name at the top.

3. Choose iCloud, then go to iCloud Backup.

4. Review the date and time of the last backup.

If the backup is older than the deleted file, there’s a good chance that your photos are in it.

To get back your data, you will have to erase your device, which is a temporary action, and then restore from that backup. It does sound a bit drastic, but the phone takes you through each step of the process. Once the backup is complete and installed, your photos should appear in the Photos app as if nothing happened.

3. Check your iCloud Photos for your images.

If you have iCloud Photos enabled, your images will sync across all of your Apple devices which use the same Apple ID. What we see is that should your photos disappear from your iPhone’s local storage, they may still be in the cloud.

At times, the Photos app puts up filters, folders, or delays in sync, which is what you’re seeing. Also, at times the device may just be in the process of downloading the thumbnail images.

A couple of things to try:

A. Check in Private and Secure Albums.

In some cases, you may have, intentionally or not, put a photo away. On iOS devices, we have the option to store images in a Hidden or Secure album, which is protected by Face ID or Touch ID.

1. Open Photos and go to Albums.

2. Go to Utilities.

3. Tap into what was recently deleted, also.

4. Release the album if needed.

If the photo is hidden, go to the individual photo options to unhide it.

B. Return iCloud Photos to on.

At times, photos disappear when iCloud Photos is turned off.

1. Go to Settings.

2. Tap your name – iCloud – Photos.

3. Make sure Sync for this iPhone is enabled.

If you turned it off recently, turning it back on may cause your photo library to sync again.

Give some time for your phone to rebuild the library; also, if you have a large collection of photos, just be patient for a bit more.

4. Restore From a Computer Backup With Finder or iTunes.

If you have backed up your iPhone to a Mac or Windows computer, you may also have a different copy of your photos stored in that backup. This works out only if the backup was made prior to the photos’ deletion.

To check:

1. Connect your iPhone to the computer.

2. On your Mac, open Finder.

On Windows or old versions of macOS, open iTunes.

3. Choose your iPhone when you see it.

4. Check the “Backups” section for the last backup date.

If at the right time it does for you, you can do an iPhone restore from this computer backup. As with iCloud restoration, your device will go back to the state it was in at the time of the backup, which also means your deleted photos will return.

This option is great for when you don’t use iCloud Photos or you prefer to store backups at home for more control.

5. Restore Your Photos With Third-Party Recovery Tools (At Your Own Risk).

At times it may be that basic recovery options do not work. Your Recently Deleted album may have been cleared out. You may not have had backups enabled. Or perhaps iCloud had issues. This is when third-party recovery tools come in.

These systems go through your iPhone’s internal storage for what remains of deleted photos which didn’t get overwritten completely. It is as if we are putting back together pages from a book that was put through a paper shredder. Sometimes the result is a full picture, sometimes just a few pieces, and at other times nothing at all.

While these do have value at times, put into them what you can, have realistic expectations, and see to it that you choose the reliable ones. They are not magic solutions, but in some cases will bring back photos which iOS has given up on.

6. Check which photos are in apps instead of the Camera Roll.

Not all of the photos that we take and save go right into the main Photos app. In many apps — which include social media platforms, messaging apps, and editing apps — we put our pictures in their private folders or cache. At times the original in the Camera Roll may be gone but a copy of it may still be found within an app.

Here is what I did:

Messaging apps:

Apps that include WhatsApp, Telegram, or Messenger do so, which in turn may keep copies of sent pictures, including ones that are also saved. Even if a primary image is removed, a forwarded or at-some-time-saved copy will still be present within the app.

Cloud-storage apps:

If you use cloud services like Drive or Dropbox, that may happen before you know it while you’re deleting your pictures.

Photo-editing apps:

Apps like VSCO, Lightroom, or editing tools often preserve original versions or drafts.

A bit of research may turn up the photo in an unexpected place.

7. Use the Files app to find your photo copies.

Many iPhone users are unaware of the Files app. At times we see a photo which we saved or downloaded shows up there instead of in the Photos app.

Try searching:

1. Open Files.

2. Look at the top of the page.

3. Use terms such as “IMG,” “JPEG,” “Photo,” or the date it took place.

It is a chance, though small, which is also true if you have passed files between applications.

8. Ways to Avoid Losing Photos in the Future.

After going through the stress of recovering photos most people choose never to go through that again. A few tips which will help you to prevent loss of memories in the future:

Turn on iCloud Photos syncing.

If your device fails, your photos still live in the cloud.

Enable automatic iCloud backups.

This provides a backup in case of the unexpected.

Back up to a computer occasionally.

A local copy which is updated regularly adds an element of security.

Do not empty the Recently Deleted album out of hand.

You don’t always know when you will need it.

Use trusted apps for long-term storage.

If you would like to avoid using only iCloud, try out other cloud or external storage options.

Final Thoughts

Recovering deleted photos on an iPhone can go from very easy to very challenging depending on what made the photos disappear in the first place. But the most important thing to note is that instant erasure of pictures is not a feature of the iPhone; in fact, we usually have a “buffer” time which may be in the form of a Recently Deleted album, an iCloud backup, or a backup on a computer which is standing by in the background.

Take your time, go slowly through each method, and what you find may surprise you. Loss of memory is tough, but with a few careful steps you’ll see what comes back.