How do you find your recently deleted photos on iphone

Accidentally deleted a photo? Don't worry—recovering deleted photos on your iPhone is easy when you follow these simple steps.

We’ve all experienced the near-instant regret of accidentally trashing a photo we love. Maybe while deleting a series of bad selfies you got rid of a cherished photo with friends or a screenshot of your favorite dinner recipe. Maybe you deleted all the photos on your iPhone only to realize you should’ve kept the shots from your grandpa’s birthday. Or maybe you were worried that Apple was scanning your photos and sent that adorable pic of your kids in the bath straight to the garbage. Thankfully, learning how to recover deleted photos on an iPhone isn’t difficult.

Just know this: You have to act fast (or at least in a timely manner). To make that easy for you, we’ve listed all the steps you need to take the next time you want to recover deleted photos on an iPhone. You may as well bookmark this page—the iPhone tricks below will come in handy when you need them most. When you’re done, brush up on other time-saving iPhone hacks, like how to hide private photos on your phone.

How to recover deleted photos on iPhone

Let’s start with the simplest method for recovering deleted iPhone photos: Retrieve them from your “Recently Deleted” folder. One big caveat: This is an option only if it’s been no more than 30 days since you deleted the photo. After that, photos are permanently deleted.

1. Open the Photos app.
2. Tap the “Albums” icon at the bottom of the screen.
3. Scroll down to the bottom of the page, then select “Recently Deleted.”
4. Tap “Select” in the top-right corner of the screen.
5. Tap each photograph that you want to recover. (To recover every photo you’ve deleted, choose “Recover All” in the lower-right corner of the screen.)
6. Tap “Recover” in the lower-right corner.

That’s it. The recovered images will once again appear in your album. Now you’re free to edit your iPhone photos like a pro and share them with your friends.

How to retrieve deleted photos through iCloud

Let’s be real: You’re not scanning your “Recently Deleted” folder on a regular basis, so there’s a chance you’ll delete a cherished photo without immediately realizing it. That’s why it’s smart to know how to recover deleted photos on an iPhone that are more than 30 days old.

You might be able to get them back by restoring a recent iCloud backup of your phone. Just know that everything will be restored to how it was at the time of the backup, including your files and any apps that were on your phone.

1. Protect your current data and photos by backing them all up to iCloud first.
2. Do a factory reset.
3. Restore your phone from a backup that’s old enough to contain the photos you want to recover.
4. Open the Photos app and confirm that the pictures you want to recover are there. If they’re not, simply repeat the process with an older backup until you’ve found the desired photos.

We know what you’re thinking: You want the deleted photos and your most recent iPhone settings. Have your cake and eat it too by uploading the recently restored photos to a storage service in the cloud or emailing them to yourself (make sure to choose the highest-quality version of the photo). Then restore your phone to its most recent settings.

How to retrieve deleted photos through iTunes

Most people use iCloud for no-fuss photo backups. But if you still use iTunes for this, discovering how to recover deleted photos on an iPhone is still pretty simple.

1. Connect your iPhone to a Mac with macOS Mojave or earlier, or to a PC.
2. Click on the iPhone icon that appears in the upper-left corner of your computer’s iTunes window.
3. Select the “Summary” tab on the left-hand side of iTunes.
4. Choose “Restore Backup” under the Backups section.
5. Select the backup you want to restore.
6. Wait for the restore to complete, then look through the photos on your computer to make sure the restored pictures are there.

Once you’ve learned how to recover deleted photos on your iPhone, brush up on other smartphone skills, like deleting your iPhone call history, hiding text messages and running image searches using your iPhone photos.

Sources:

• Apple: “Delete and hide photos and videos on iPhone”
• Apple: “If you’re missing photos or videos in the Photos app”
• Apple: “Restore your iPhone, iPad, or iPod touch in iTunes on PC”

Popular Videos

ⓘ

• You can recover deleted photos from your iPhone's Recently Deleted folder or an iCloud backup.
• You can also recover deleted photos from cloud storage apps like OneDrive or Dropbox.
• If photos are missing but not deleted, you may find them in the Hidden folder of the Photos app.

For many people, photos are the most important data stored on their iPhone — so losing your photos can be a catastrophe.

The good news is that even if you accidentally delete some (or all) of your photos, there are a few ways to get them back.

We'll discuss those methods, and also explain a few safeguards you can take to keep your photos ultra-secure.

How to recover deleted photos from your iPhone

Apple provides a "recently deleted" photo folder in the Photos app, which is essentially the same as the Recycle Bin on your computer. It holds all the photos that have been deleted for 30 days.

On day 31, a recently deleted photo is deleted permanently — but until then it's easy to recover. Here's how to do it:

1. Open the Photos app.

2. Tap Albums on the bottom menu.

3. Scroll down until you reach the Utilities section and tap Recently Deleted.

4. Tap Select at the top-right of the screen.

5. Select every photo that you want to return to your iPhone.

6. In the lower-right corner, tap Recover.

How to recover deleted photos from a backup

If your photos are already gone from the Recently Deleted folder, then you may be able to get your photos back by restoring your phone from a previous backup.

The disadvantage of this approach is that all of your deleted files will be recovered from iCloud Drive — apps, data, text messages, and so on — with an older backup, which you might not want to do. If the backup you want to restore is fairly recent though, it might be worth it.

iCloud backup

If you recently uploaded photos to iCloud, you can easily recover them by accessing them from your device or the iCloud website. But if you use iCloud to back up your phone, follow these steps.

1. Back up your phone to iCloud so that if something goes awry, or you don't like the content of the older backup and are willing to give up the photos, you can return to your current configuration.

2. After the backup is complete, perform a factory reset, and then restore your phone from a backup that's old enough to include the photos you have lost.

3. When the restore is complete, check the Photos app to see if the photos you lost were recovered. If not, you can repeat the process and restore an older backup, or return to your most recent backup.

iTunes backup 

Most people now use iCloud to backup and restore their phone, but if you're still using iTunes for this, then restoring from a backup is pretty straightforward.

1. Connect your iPhone to your Mac with macOS Mojave or earlier, or your PC, and then click the iPhone icon when it appears in the upper-left corner of the iTunes window.

2. Click the Summary tab in the pane on the left.

3. In the Backups section, click "Restore Backup.

4. Choose the backup you want to restore your phone to.

5. When the restore is complete, check the Photos app to see if the photos you lost were recovered. If not, you can repeat the process and restore from an older backup, or return to the most recent backup.

How to recover deleted photos using Finder in macOS Catalina 10.15 or above

1. On your Mac with macOS Catalina 10.15 or above, open Finder.

2. Connect your iPhone to your Mac computer.

3. Click on your device in the left hand menu when it appears.

4. Click Restore Backup.

5. Select which backup date you'd like to use.

6. Click Restore.

How to recover deleted photos with a cloud storage service

Finally, if you use a cloud service like Dropbox or OneDrive, you can create a separate backup of all your photos, independent of iCloud and iTunes, which are then synchronized with a folder on your computer.

If you don't already use one of these, you can install the Dropbox or OneDrive app on your iPhone so they automatically back up your photos.

Here's how to restore a backup of your photos from Dropbox or OneDrive.

1. Open the folder on your computer that includes the backed up photos from your iPhone.

2. Also open your iCloud Photos collection in a web browser.

3. Drag the photos that you want to restore from the folder to the browser. They'll automatically be uploaded to iCloud, and soon thereafter synced with your iPhone.

How to find hidden photos on your iPhone

If the photos are missing on your iPhone but you haven't deleted them, they could just be hidden instead. If that's the case, you'll need to unhide them. 

1. Open the Photos app.

2. Tap Albums on the bottom menu

3. Scroll down until you reach the Utilities section and tap Hidden. If there aren't any photos in the Hidden folder, you'll see 0 next to it.

4. Tap Select on the top-right of the screen.

5. Select every photo that you want to return to your iPhone.

6. Tap the Share button on the bottom-left of the screen.

7. Scroll down and tap Unhide in the options below the photos and share options.

Dave Johnson

Freelance Writer

Dave Johnson is a technology journalist who writes about consumer tech and how the industry is transforming the speculative world of science fiction into modern-day real life. Dave grew up in New Jersey before entering the Air Force to operate satellites, teach space operations, and do space launch planning. He then spent eight years as a content lead on the Windows team at Microsoft. As a photographer, Dave has photographed wolves in their natural environment; he's also a scuba instructor and co-host of several podcasts. Dave is the author of more than two dozen books and has contributed to many sites and publications including CNET, Forbes, PC World, How To Geek, and Insider.

Read more Read less

Why can't I find recently deleted photos on iPhone?

Can you still recover recently deleted photos on iPhone?

How do I find recently deleted photos?

Can I see my permanently deleted photos on iPhone?