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User profile for user: Fun_mushroom88
Fun_mushroom88 Author
User level: Level 1
4 points

Back up and photos

So I deleted about 100 photos form my iPhone. I wanted to recover them and keep them instead but, i hit the delete button and all of them were gone and couldn’t recover. Now I previously backed up my phone a day ago and the photos were still there, so is there any way I can erase my phone, use the back up, and get those photos back?


Posted on Jan 28, 2021 6:41 AM

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User profile for user: Lawrence Finch
Lawrence Finch
User level: Level 10
210,440 points

Posted on Jan 28, 2021 6:50 AM

It depends.

  • First to check, when you delete photos they are moved to the Recently Deleted album (sort of like trash) and you can recover them from there. If you deleted them there also it’s more complicated.
  • If you were syncing photos to iCloud by turning on the Photos switch in Settings/[your name]/iCloud then deleting them from the phone will also delete them from iCloud, and they are gone forever from the AppleVerse.
  • If you did not sync them to iCloud (the switch is off) they will be in a backup on your computer or iCloud (If you backed up, of course). You can restore that backup→Restore your iOS device from a backup - Apple Support

Finally: Are you sure you didn’t do ANY of these ways of preserving photos?


  • emailed, texted or messaged the photos to friends or family
  • Transfer your photos to your computer via USB cable
  • Apple Photo Stream
  • Sync to Google Photos
  • Sync to some other photo archiving service such as Shutterfly
  • Sync to Dropbox
  • Sync to box.com
  • Sync to Microsoft OneDrive
  • Sync to Amazon Photos
  • back up to Livedrive
  • Backup to any other backup or archiving service

If the answer is no to all of the above your photos are gone forever.


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User profile for user: Lawrence Finch
Lawrence Finch
User level: Level 10
210,440 points

Jan 28, 2021 6:50 AM in response to Fun_mushroom88

It depends.

  • First to check, when you delete photos they are moved to the Recently Deleted album (sort of like trash) and you can recover them from there. If you deleted them there also it’s more complicated.
  • If you were syncing photos to iCloud by turning on the Photos switch in Settings/[your name]/iCloud then deleting them from the phone will also delete them from iCloud, and they are gone forever from the AppleVerse.
  • If you did not sync them to iCloud (the switch is off) they will be in a backup on your computer or iCloud (If you backed up, of course). You can restore that backup→Restore your iOS device from a backup - Apple Support

Finally: Are you sure you didn’t do ANY of these ways of preserving photos?


  • emailed, texted or messaged the photos to friends or family
  • Transfer your photos to your computer via USB cable
  • Apple Photo Stream
  • Sync to Google Photos
  • Sync to some other photo archiving service such as Shutterfly
  • Sync to Dropbox
  • Sync to box.com
  • Sync to Microsoft OneDrive
  • Sync to Amazon Photos
  • back up to Livedrive
  • Backup to any other backup or archiving service

If the answer is no to all of the above your photos are gone forever.


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Back up and photos

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