How to recover deleted photos and videos on iPhone, iPad, and Mac

These quick tricks will teach you how to restore recently deleted photos and videos on your iPhone, iPad, Mac, and iCloud in just a few taps.

Recovering deleted photos on iPhone

Deleting photos and videos you no longer need is one of the most effective techniques for freeing up storage space on iPhone & iPad, Mac, and iCloud.

However, the photos and videos that you delete from your device don’t really free up storage because they’re kept in a special album within Photos for 30 (or even up to 40) days. This is so you can easily get them back if you deleted the pictures in error or have a change of mind later on.

But the important thing to keep in mind is that you can only restore deleted photos and videos from your devices before the 30-day time period is up because, after that, they are gone forever.

Overall, the process is easier than you might think, and our quick step-by-step tutorial will teach you how to recover your recently deleted photos and videos like a pro.

Do you use iCloud Photos?

  • If yes: iCloud Photos keeps all your pictures and videos synced across all your Apple devices, Windows PC, and the web. This also includes changes like photo edits, deletes, and recovery. As a result, if you use iCloud Photos, you only need to follow the steps to recover your deleted photos on one of your Apple devices or iCloud Web, and they will be added back to the respective Photos app on your iPhone, iPad, and Mac.
  • If not: you will have to recover the deleted media individually on each device.

Recover deleted photos and videos

On iPhone and iPad

  1. Open the iOS Photos app and tap Albums > Recently Deleted. On iPad, tap Recently Deleted under the Utilities heading of the left sidebar.
  2. To undelete multiple photos & videos, tap the Select button and pick the photos you’d like to recover. After that, tap the three dots menu icon and choose Recover > Recover n Photos.
  3. To undelete all previously deleted photos & videos, tap the Select button. Next, tap the three dots menu icon and pick Recover All > Recover n Items.
Recover deleted photos and videos on iPhone

Finally, go back to the Photos app, and you will find the recovered photos and videos there.

On Mac

  1. Open the Photos app on your Mac and select Recently Deleted from the left sidebar.
  2. Select the deleted photos and videos you want to get back and click Recover.
  3. To recover all deleted media, press Command + A to select them all or use Edit > Select All from the top menu bar. Finally, click Recover.
Recover deleted photos and videos on Mac

You will find all these recovered media inside your Mac’s Photos app.

On iCloud Web

You can access iCloud even in a non-Apple web browser and recover your deleted photos and videos from there. As expected, this only works if you use iCloud Photos on at least one of your devices.

  1. Visit icloud.com/photos and sign in using your Apple ID.
  2. Select Recently Deleted from the left side.
  3. Hold the Mac’s Command key or Windows PC’s Control key and select the photos you want to recover. Next, click Recover.
  4. To recover all deleted photos & videos, press Command + A or Control + A to select them all and hit Recover.
Recover deleted pictures from iCloud Photos on web

Don’t see the “Recently Deleted” option?

You won’t see the Recently Deleted section if there are no photos to recover. Secondly, on iPad, Mac, and iCloud Web, make sure you click the tiny arrow next to Utilities and Photos to unhide the Recently Deleted folder.

Click arrow next to Photos in Mac Photos app

Remove protection from the Recently Deleted folder

If you don’t want the Recently Deleted section to be secured by Face ID, Touch ID, or passcode, you can easily turn off this privacy feature from the Photos app settings. Note that Recently Deleted on iCloud Web is not locked behind a passcode.

Recover photos and videos synced from a computer

If you don’t use iCloud Photos, you can sync your photos and videos using Finder on your Mac. And if you unsynced them, here’s how to get them back:

  1. Connect your iOS device with a USB cable to the computer. Launch Finder, and select your iPhone or iPad under the Locations heading.
  2. Go to the Photos tab.
  3. Check the box for “Sync photos to your device from.” The Photos option is checked by default, and you can choose to select all photos and albums or just the selected one. If you’d like to sync photos from a Finder folder, click Photos next to “Sync photos to your device from” and choose a folder.
  4. Finally, click Apply, and photos or videos that were synced from that folder through Finder will now be put back on your device.
Sync photos to your iPhone from Mac using Finder

Check out next: How to quickly and easily delete duplicate photos on iPhone and iPad for free