DB Labs
How to Recover Deleted Photos on iPhone
Open Photos App and Go to Recently Deleted
Open the Photos app on your iPhone. Tap Albums at the bottom of the screen. Scroll all the way down to the Utilities section — you will see it below your shared albums and media types. Tap Recently Deleted. If prompted, authenticate with Face ID, Touch ID, or your passcode — Apple has locked this album for privacy since iOS 16. You will see every photo and video deleted in the past 30 days, along with how many days remain before each one is permanently removed.
Find and Select the Photos You Want to Recover
Browse through Recently Deleted to find the photo or photos you want to restore. Tap Select in the top-right corner, then tap each photo or video you want to recover. A blue checkmark confirms each selection. If you want to recover everything, tap Recover All instead of selecting individually. You can also tap a photo to preview it full-screen before deciding whether to restore it.
Tap Recover to Restore the Photos
After making your selection, tap Recover in the bottom-right corner. A confirmation sheet will appear — tap Recover Photo (or Recover X Photos if multiple are selected). The photos are immediately moved back to your main library and will reappear in the All Photos view and in the original album they came from. If iCloud Photos is on, they will also resync to your other devices within a few minutes.
What If Recently Deleted Is Empty? Options After 30 Days
If 30 days have passed and you have already emptied Recently Deleted, the photo is gone from your iPhone. But there are a few other places to check before giving up:
iCloud.com
If iCloud Photos is enabled on your iPhone, visit iCloud.com/photos on a browser, sign in with your Apple ID, and check the Recently Deleted album there. iCloud's Recently Deleted can sometimes hold items for a brief window beyond the 30-day iPhone limit, though this is not guaranteed.
Mac Photos App
If you have a Mac that is signed in to iCloud Photos and was recently synced, open the Photos app on your Mac, go to File > Show Recently Deleted (or look in the sidebar under Recently Deleted). Mac Photos maintains its own Recently Deleted album synced with iCloud, so a photo may still be recoverable there even if it has disappeared from your iPhone.
iPhone Backup
If you back up to iCloud or iTunes and the backup was made before you deleted the photo, restoring that backup will bring the photo back — along with all other data from that backup date. This is a drastic step and will replace your entire iPhone to that point in time. Only consider it if the photo is extremely important and you have no other option. Learn more about iPhone backup best practices in our iPhone photo backup guide.
Third-Party Recovery Software: An Honest Assessment
You will find many apps and websites claiming they can recover permanently deleted iPhone photos using forensic recovery software. Here is an honest take:
- On modern iPhones (iPhone 8 and later with iOS 12+), third-party recovery software almost never works. iOS encrypts storage and uses NAND flash architecture that makes traditional data recovery techniques ineffective.
- These tools may work on very old iPhones (pre-Touch ID era) when connected to a Windows PC via iTunes backup — a specific technical scenario that applies to very few people.
- Be cautious of paid software that promises guaranteed recovery. Most cannot access deleted iPhone photos and will take your money without delivering results.
- Your best options are always: Recently Deleted album, iCloud.com, Mac Photos, or a pre-deletion backup.
If iCloud Photos Is Enabled: What Recovery Means for All Your Devices
With iCloud Photos turned on, your library is mirrored across every Apple device on your account. This means:
- Recovering a photo on your iPhone also restores it on your iPad, Mac, and any other signed-in device automatically.
- The same 30-day Recently Deleted window applies to iCloud — when you delete on one device, the deletion propagates to all devices.
- If you recover from iCloud.com in a browser, the photo will reappear on your iPhone and other devices within minutes once you are on Wi-Fi.
How to Prevent Accidental Deletion Going Forward
The best approach is to make it harder to accidentally lose photos in the first place. A few strategies:
- Enable iCloud Photos — your library is backed up automatically and changes are reversible within 30 days across all devices.
- Set up a secondary backup — use Google Photos, an external drive, or a Mac to keep a second copy. See our iPhone photo backup guide for the full setup.
- Use Swype Photo Cleaner for cleanup — when you clean up your photo library, Swype Photo Cleaner always routes deletions through iOS's standard Recently Deleted album. That means photos deleted during a cleanup session are still recoverable for 30 days, exactly like a manual deletion. Nothing is permanently gone without going through the same confirmation steps as the native Photos app.
Why Swype Photo Cleaner Never Permanently Deletes Photos
One concern people have when using a third-party app to clean up photos is: what if I delete something by mistake? With Swype Photo Cleaner, this is not a risk. The app uses the same iOS PhotoKit framework as the native Photos app and does not have the ability to permanently delete photos directly. Every photo deleted through Swype goes to Recently Deleted first, giving you the standard 30-day recovery window. The app is designed to help you clean aggressively while keeping a safety net in place. You can also review exactly what you deleted via the Photos app's Recently Deleted album at any time. For more details on how the app handles your library, see our FAQ.