3 Easy Ways to Recover Deleted Photos from iPhone without Backup
"I went on a trip and took photos on my iPhone 12 (iOS 14), I decided to show the images to my family yesterday, but it turns out that there are missing pictures. I wonder if there's a way to recover deleted photos from iPhone without backup. The photos were taken 3 weeks ago." -- from Apple Forum.
You may find the photos are missing as above, only to find that you didn't keep a copy of pictures on iCloud, iTunes, or a computer, etc. Oh, it sounds depressing, doesn't it? Still, mishap happens, it doesn't mean that you'll say goodbye to these treasured photos for good. Well, this article will now take you through 3 practical methods to recover lost iPhone photos without backup.
- Part 1: Scenarios for iPhone Photo Loss
- Part 2: How to Recover iPhone Photos without Backup from Recently Deleted Folder
- Part 3: How to Recover Lost iPhone Photos without Backup Using Finder
- Part 4: How to Recover Deleted Photos from iPhone without Backup via Professional Tool
- Bonus: How to Enhance the Success Rate for iPhone Photo Recovery
Part 1: Scenarios for iPhone Photo Loss
Some principal situations for iPhone picture loss:
- Accidental Deletion: mistakenly deleting pictures could be the most responsible action for iPhone photo loss.
- iOS downgrade: you may downgrade the latest iOS 16 to get more direct access to your iPhone. But this might lead to the loss of iPhone photos and other data.
- iOS update failure: the iOS upgrade failure caused by insufficient memory or network is also an important reason for the disappearance of iPhone pictures.
- Factory Settings: iPhone doesn't function well? If so, you may need to restore the factory settings. Yet if there's no backup in advance, its photos are likely to disappear.
- Jailbreak: jailbreaking makes iPhone vulnerable to virus attack, so file loss or crash tends to occur.
- iPhone broken: with a broken or smashed iPhone, your photos and other files may not be available, which is the last thing iPhone users want to come across.
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Part 2: Recover iPhone Photos without Backup from Recently Deleted Folder
The easiest way to retrieve lost iPhone photos without backup is through the Recently Deleted folder, in which the photos will be stored for 30 days before disappearing forever. Namely, you are unable to recover permanently deleted photos on iPhone Recently Deleted folder on day 31 after the deletion.
To recover deleted iPhone photos that are not backed up from recently deleted folder:
- Open the Photos app and tap on "Albums".
- Scroll down to find and touch "Recently Deleted".
- Hit "Select" and mark the photos you intend to recover.
- After the selection, tap "Recover" to fetch the deleted photos.
Part 3: Recover Lost iPhone Photos without Backup Using Finder
Cannot find your wanted photos in the recently deleted folder? You can now try to recover deleted or lost iPhone photos from the Finder if your Mac is with macOS Catalina 10.15 or macOS Big Sur 11.
You only need to choose where you search using the 3 tags towards the top of the Finder window. And then simply pick the deleted iPhone photos and put them on any folder you want.
How to recover deleted photos from iPhone 14/13/12/11/XS/XR/X without a backup for free via Finder?
- Connect your iPhone to your Mac via a USB cable.
- Go to the Finder on the Mac.
- Input the name of the image you're attempting to restore.
- Scroll through the list till you see the photos you're looking for.
- Select the pictures and drag them to a folder.
Tips: You can also press Shift + Command + . (the period key) in Finder to dig through your Mac's file system to find desired files that have been lost recently.
Further Reading:
- How to Transfer Photos from iPhone to iPhone 12/11/XS/XR/8/7/6?
- Best 5 Ways to Transfer Photos from Android to iPhone in Minutes
Part 4: Recover Deleted Photos from iPhone without Backup via Professional Tool
You may find that the deleted photos can't be found in the iPhone recently deleted folder, and your Mac won't display them either. At this point, you can directly turn to a 3rd-party professional and secure tool like iPhone Data Recovery.
With decades of file recovery experience for iPhone/iPad/iPod, this smart utility has delivered photo retrieving services for hundreds of thousands of Apple device owners. It is characterized by great efficiency and a high success rate for data recovery.
Key characteristics of iPhone Data Recovery:
- Recover deleted or lost data from iPhone, iPad, and iPod without backup.
- The supported data types: photos, videos, iMessages, contacts, call records, WhatsApp data, notes, calendar, reminders, voice memos, voice mails, etc.
- It also helps restore iOS data from iCloud or iTunes backup files.
- Allow you to preview and pick the files you want for recovery.
- It is compatible with various Windows and Mac computers.
- Run smoothly on various iOS devices, including iPhone 14/14 Pro/14 Pro Max/14 Plus, iPhone 13/13 Pro (Max)/13 mini, iPhone 12/12 mini/12 Pro (Max), iPhone 11/11 Pro (Max), iPhone X/XR/Xs/Xs Max, iPhone 8/8 Plus, iPhone 7/7 Plus, iPhone 6/6S/6 Plus, iPods, iPads, etc.
- It never interferes with the privacy of its users.
To restore iPhone photos without backup via iPhone Data Recovery:
Step 1. Connect your iPhone to a computer
Download and install this utility before launching it on a computer. Select the "Recover from iOS Device" mode. Then connect your iPhone to the computer via a USB cord for automatic detection by the software. After that, just tap "Start Scan" to run a scan for your iDevice.
Step 2. Preview and select your lost pictures
All the iPhone data will be scanned out and presented in categories. Here you can choose the "Camera Roll", "Photo Stream", "App Photos", or "Photo Library" folder from the left sidebar to locate and preview the detailed items.
Step 3. Recover deleted photos from iPhone without backup
Finally, you can select the desired pictures and press "Recover" to restore the deleted iPhone photos without backup.
Bonus: How to Enhance the Success Rate for iPhone Photo Recovery
The deleted photos don't disappear at once from an iPhone, but somewhere else. At this time, the key to improve the recovery success rate is to minimize or avoid them being overwritten by newly written data on your device. So, how can we do that? OK, here are 3 tricks to share with you:
- First and foremost, if you don't have any urgent task to deal with on your iPhone, it's better to stop using it temporarily.
- Secondly, avoid restoring your iPhone to factory settings. Data loss that occurs due to factory reset is far different from the factors like accidental deletion or others. This would probably leave a little pinch of the chance to get the deleted images back.
- Lastly, look for a powerful and widely-admired iPhone data recovery tool as soon as possible. This is also a vital step in augmenting the chance of success.
Calling It a Wrap
If you are lucky enough, you can get the pictures you want from the recently deleted folder or Finder. Yet the former has strict requirements on the time of deleting photos, and the latter applies to the Mac with the specific macOS version. In stark contrast to them, iPhone Data Recovery always comes in handy no matter how bad the situation looks.
At last, truth be told, iPhone is an awesome capturer for photo-taking enthusiasts. To make those precious moments in your device last forever, it is suggested that you back up your iPhone data to your computer regularly.
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