Return deleted photos and videos

Hi Marc,

If you deleted the photos and videos by mistake, don’t reset or restore the iPhone yet. The first place to check is the Recently Deleted album, because Apple keeps deleted photos and videos there for up to 30 days before they’re permanently removed.

I. Check Recently Deleted on the iPhone

Open Photos → Collections → scroll down to Utilities → Recently Deleted.

Unlock the album with Face ID or your passcode, then tap Select. If your photos and videos are there, choose Recover All or select only the items you need and tap Recover.

II. Check iCloud Photos as well

If you use iCloud Photos, also sign in at iCloud.com/photos with the same Apple Account and check Recently Deleted there. If the items appear there, select them and choose Recover.

III. Be careful with backups

I would not restore the iPhone from a backup as the first step. If iCloud Photos is turned on, your photos and videos sync with iCloud and are not handled like normal iCloud Backup data. Restoring a backup may also require erasing the iPhone first, which could put other current data at risk.

IV. If Recently Deleted is empty

If the photos were also removed from Recently Deleted, or if more than 30 days have passed, Apple does not provide a way to recover them through the Photos app. At that point, the only realistic thing to check is whether you still have another copy on a Mac, PC, external drive, another device, or a separate backup.

Start with Recently Deleted right away. If the deletion just happened today and the items were not permanently deleted, that is the safest and most likely recovery path.

Just a gentle reminder — there is also a dedicated English Apple Support Community at discussions.apple.com. You are welcome to continue there if English is easier for you.

Du bist hier in einer deutschsprachigen Community, also poste bitte aus Gründen der Übersichtlichkeit und Effektivität auf Deutsch oder nutze einen Übersetzungsdienst.

Gelöschte Fotos sind 30 Tage im Album „zuletzt gelöscht“ verfügbar.

Gibt es ein lokales Backup über einen Mac/PC auf ein externes Laufwerk ?

One more thing - as you probably know - if you are syncing your photos with iCloud Photos, the deletion of any photo on one device will sync to iCloud and all your other devices. iCloud Photos are not included in the iCloud backup of your iPhone. We have to be very careful, when we are deleting photos from an iCloud Photos Library and always check what is in Recently Deleted, before erasing it permanently.

But if one of your devices has been offline, while you deleted the photos and still is, the deleted photos may still be on that device. So check your other devices instantly. If you have a Mac, the photos may be in the Time Machine backup of this Mac.

If your photos have already vanished from you Recently Deleted a well, Apple Support might be able to restore them from Apple's own backups of iCloud. But they are not obliged to do so, but perhaps they are willing to help, if the photos are really very important.

Ich würde dich ebenfalls bitten hier in deutscher Sprache zu posten.

Nicht alle Menschen hier sind des Englischen mächtig.

Alternativ kannst du gerne deine Frage in der englischsprachigen Community stellen.