Recover deleted photos not in iCloud

iCloud is a sync service, so deleting photos in one place deletes them everywhere.

If the photos are not in your main iCloud Photos library and not in the iCloud Photos recently-deleted album, then you will need to find copies of or backups of the photos made previously.

Here is how to make a backup of your iCloud Photos library (won’t help here, but might help in the future):

https://support.apple.com/en-us/108306

It's pretty hard to delete pictures accidentally! When you accidentally push the button you get this:

It says "This will delete the selected photos from iCloud and all connected devices." We should take this warning seriously when tapping "Delete From All Devices."

A great safety feature on the iPhone is that deleted pictures remain in the "Recently Deleted" view for 30 days before they are removed permanently. This safety feature can be defeated, though, by choosing to prematurely delete pictures from the "Recently Deleted" view.  If you use iCloud Photos, then that "synchronizes" its Photos Library with the phone, so what you see on the phone is what is at iCloud. iCloud Photos doesn't keep pictures in "Recently Deleted" any longer than the phone does. So it's really important to look carefully at the Recently Deleted pictures before deleting them permanently. Unfortunately, there is no 2nd safety feature in case we didn't heed the warning for the first safety.

Unfortunately, if you don't keep your own backups to an external drive, then there really isn't any place else to look. To back up your pictures on your iPhone 15 you can just plug in an external drive, select pictures, and choose "Share>Save to Files" to make safe copies of your pictures.

You can backup pictures to a computer or just save them to an external drive. With your iPhone you need a lightning to USB adapter, and then you can just plug in an external drive, select pictures, and choose "Share>Save to Files" to make safe copies of your pictures.

MrHoffman suggested more ways to backup iCloud Files.