How to Recover Permanently Deleted Photos on iPhone

zinghayLast Updated: July 11, 2024

7 minutes read

We’ve all been there: accidentally deleting a precious photo from our iPhone. While the Recently Deleted album offers a 30-day grace period, what happens when that time runs out? Can you recover permanently deleted photos on iPhone? The answer is a resounding yes! This comprehensive guide will walk you through various methods to retrieve your lost memories, whether you have a backup or not.

Don’t despair if you’ve accidentally deleted photos from your iPhone. You can recover them from iCloud, iTunes backup, your phone’s memory, or even cloud storage services. Let’s dive into the details.

Understanding Photo Deletion on iPhone

When you delete a photo on your iPhone, it doesn’t vanish into thin air. Instead, it’s moved to the Recently Deleted album, where it remains for 30 days. This gives you a chance to change your mind and recover the photo. However, after 30 days, the photo is permanently deleted from your iPhone.

But even after permanent deletion, there’s still hope! The deleted photos might still reside in your iPhone’s memory, waiting to be overwritten by new data. This is where data recovery tools come in handy.

How to Recover Deleted Photos from Recently Deleted Album

Before we delve into more advanced methods, let’s cover the basics: recovering photos from the Recently Deleted album. This is the simplest way to get back photos you’ve deleted within the last 30 days.

1. Open your iPhone Photos app and tap the “Albums” tab at the bottom.
2. Select the “Recently Deleted” album to access the photos you’ve deleted.

Tip: In iOS 16, iOS 17, and later, you’ll need to unlock the Recently Deleted folder using your Face ID or Touch ID.

1. Press the “Select” button and pick the photos and videos you want to recover. To restore all photos and videos, simply tap “Recover All.”
2. Confirm with the “Recover Photos” button. The recovered photos will go back to their original location.

If you’ve accidentally tapped the “Delete” button in the Recently Deleted album, the selected photos are permanently removed from your iPhone. In this case, you’ll need to explore the methods below to recover them.

How to Recover Permanently Deleted Photos on iPhone Without Backup

Let’s tackle the scenario where you don’t have any backups of your iPhone – neither on iCloud, iTunes, nor third-party cloud storage services. In this situation, you can attempt to recover permanently deleted photos directly from your iPhone’s flash memory.

When photos are permanently deleted, they remain in the iPhone’s storage until overwritten by new data. This means that the space they occupied is still available for use. Once new data fills that space, the deleted photos are gone for good.

Therefore, it’s crucial to act quickly and avoid saving any new data to your iPhone. Using a dedicated iPhone data recovery tool can help you scan your iPhone’s memory and recover those lost photos.

Recover Permanently Deleted Photos with iPhone Data Recovery

iPhone Data Recovery software is a powerful tool designed to recover various types of data from iPhones, including permanently deleted photos, contacts, text messages, notes, call history, videos, and more.

With its advanced scanning capabilities, iPhone Data Recovery can delve deep into your iPhone’s memory to find and recover deleted photos, even if you don’t have a backup. Here’s how it works:

1. Download and install iPhone Data Recovery on your computer. It’s compatible with Windows and macOS and works with all iOS versions, including iOS 16 and iOS 17.
2. Connect your iPhone to your computer using a lightning cable and launch iPhone Data Recovery.

1. Click “Start Scan” to initiate a deep scan of your iPhone. This may take a few minutes to find all recoverable pictures, and once found, they will be displayed and categorized on the left side of the screen.

1. Preview and choose the pictures and videos you want to recover. Simply select the items you want back by ticking the checkboxes, or use the top selector to either “Show All” or “Show Deleted Only.”
2. Click the “Recover” button in the bottom right to retrieve the deleted iPhone photos.

iPhone Data Recovery also offers two additional features for file recovery: restoring data from an iCloud backup or an iTunes backup. This lets you selectively restore the data you need without overwriting the entire iPhone content. If you have a backup containing the deleted iPhone photos, give this feature a try.

Video Tutorial: How to Recover Permanently Deleted iPhone Photos

How to Recover Permanently Deleted Photos from iPhone with iTunes Backup

If you have a recent iTunes backup of your iPhone stored on your computer, you can attempt a full restore on your iPhone to recover the photos you’ve deleted permanently. However, keep in mind that this method will erase all data on your iPhone that was added after the backup was created.

Note:

• Restoring from iTunes backup will overwrite your iPhone with the backup data, including all apps and settings. You won’t be able to selectively recover photos.
• Consider using iPhone Data Recovery to extract and restore only the deleted photos from the backup or device memory, without affecting your existing content.

For Windows or macOS Mojave 10.14 and earlier, follow these steps to recover permanently deleted iPhone photos from an iTunes backup. On macOS 10.15 and later, use a Finder backup instead.

1. Connect your iPhone to the computer where your backup exists and open iTunes.
2. Click on the phone icon at the top when it appears and choose “Summary” from the menu on the left pane. In Finder, go to the “General” tab.
3. Click “This Computer” > “Restore Backup” in the “Backups” section.

1. Select a recent backup from the list and hit “Restore” to begin. Ensure you select the backup containing the iPhone photos you permanently deleted; otherwise, they cannot be restored to your iPhone’s Photos app.

If you don’t want to lose your current data while restoring from an iTunes backup, consider using iPhone Data Recovery. It allows you to selectively restore deleted photos from the backup without affecting your existing data.

To restore permanently deleted photos on iPhone using iTunes with customizable options and no data loss:

1. Run iPhone Data Recovery on your computer and go to “Recover from iTunes Backup File.”

All your available backups will display in the window automatically, along with information about when they were created.

1. Select a backup and click “Start Scan.”

If the iTunes backup is encrypted, you’ll need to input the password to unlock it.

1. Preview the scanning results and recover the photos and videos.

You can repeat the process to scan other backups until you find the one containing the photos you want to recover.

How to Recover Permanently Deleted iPhone Photos from iCloud

iCloud is Apple’s cloud service that lets you back up and restore your iPhone data. If you backed up your phone to iCloud when you still had the photos you want, you can recover them using iCloud.

1. Open the “Settings” app on your iPhone and select your Apple ID card.
2. Tap “iCloud” > “iCloud Backup.” Ensure you have a recent backup of your iPhone in iCloud.
3. Go back to “Settings.”
4. Tap “General” > “Reset” > “Erase All Content and Settings” > “Erase Now” to reset your iPhone to factory settings.
5. When your iPhone reboots and presents the initial welcome screen, go through the normal setup steps.
6. As soon as you see the “Apps & Data” screen, choose “Restore from iCloud Backup.”

1. Sign in to iCloud with your Apple ID and password to access your backups.
2. Select the backup that contains your permanently deleted pictures from the list.
3. Wait for your iPhone to finish restoring from the iCloud backup.

How to Get Permanently Deleted Photos Back with Cloud Storage Services

If all else fails, you have one last chance: check your third-party cloud-based storage services. There are many cloud services that offer syncing and backup of iPhone photos, such as Google Photos, OneDrive, Dropbox, and more.

If you’ve ever installed a cloud app on your iPhone, there might be a backup of your photo library uploaded to the provider’s server. Check the cloud app to see if your permanently deleted photos are still there or in the “Trash” folder. Additionally, don’t forget to check the special folder (like the Dropbox folder) the app created on your computer, as it might contain backed-up photos from your iPhone.

FAQs about Deleted iPhone Photo Recovery

1. Will photos disappear forever after permanent deletion?

While it might seem like permanently deleted photos are gone forever, they actually remain in your device’s memory until overwritten by new data. If you act quickly, there’s a good chance to recover deleted photos and retrieve the lost data.

2. Where can I find deleted photos on iPhone?

When photos are deleted on iPhone, they are moved to the Recently Deleted album, where they remain for 30 days. This makes it easy to restore them back to your iPhone:

• Access the Photos app on your iPhone.
• Go to the “Albums” tab at the bottom of the screen.
• Scroll down to choose the “Recently Deleted” album and tap it.
• If you’re using iOS 16 or iOS 17 and later, use Face ID or Touch ID to unlock the album.
• Choose the pictures and videos you wish to recover and press the “Recover” button to restore the selected items.

If you’re sure you no longer need the photos, you can use the “Delete” option to permanently remove them from your iPhone.

3. Is it possible to recover permanently deleted photos from my iPhone?

Restoring photos on your iPhone is possible even if they’ve been permanently deleted, but only if they haven’t been replaced by newly added files. To recover lost data, you can employ reliable iPhone recovery software for scanning, or you may choose to restore your iPhone from a previous backup stored in iTunes, iCloud, or other cloud-based drives.

4. What if I don’t have a backup?

If you don’t have a backup, you can still try to recover deleted photos using a data recovery tool like iPhone Data Recovery. This tool can scan your iPhone’s memory and attempt to recover deleted photos, even if they’ve been permanently deleted.

5. How can I prevent accidental photo deletion in the future?

There are a few things you can do to prevent accidental photo deletion:

• Enable iCloud Photo Library: This will automatically back up your photos to iCloud, ensuring you have a copy even if you delete them from your iPhone.
• Use a third-party cloud storage service: Services like Google Photos, OneDrive, and Dropbox can also back up your photos and provide additional storage space.
• Be careful when deleting photos: Always double-check before deleting photos, especially if they are important to you.

By following these tips and using the methods outlined in this guide, you can increase your chances of recovering permanently deleted photos on your iPhone. Remember, even if you think your photos are gone forever, there’s still hope! With the right tools and techniques, you can bring back those precious memories.