[Full Guide] How to Recover Photos/Pictures from A Dead iPhone?
"My iPhone was run over by a car and was badly damaged. My new phone will be launched soon, but I want to restore photos that are not backed up on my old iPhone. I cannot turn on the phone, and when I try to plug it in, nothing happens on my Mac. I also don't think I have any backups available on my computer. Can I retrieve photos from a dead iPhone in some way using the fragments of the old phone? Thanks!" Question from discussions.apple.com
Did you crash or drop your iPhone on the ground accidentally? Or did your iPhone fell into water mistakenly? Anyway, your iPhone may be dead or broken for some reasons. It would be a great pity if this accident happens just right after you have taken a lot of photos during your wonderful travel. However, you don't need to be so worried. This article will show you 3 ways to recover pictures from dead iPhone 12/11/Xs/X/8 Plus/7/6. Just read on to find out how.
Method 1. How to Recover Photos from Dead iPhone via iTunes Backup
If you have regular iTunes backups to your iPhone, then you can restore your photos from iTunes backups. As we all know, iTunes itself does not allow photos to be restored individually. It can only restore all the backup files at once, which means all the existing data on your iPhone will be overwritten. For this reason, we strongly recommend the professional data recovery tool - MobiKin Doctor for iOS. With its help, you can selectively retrieve your iPhone photos from iTunes backup without deleting the data on your phone.
Doctor for iOS can help you:
- Recover photos from iPhone even if your iPhone is dead/broken.
- Support to recover iPhone photos, contacts, messages, call history, voice memos, notes, and many more.
- Recover contacts and text messages from iOS devices directly without any backup.
- Selectively restore data from iTunes backups with no data loss.
- Preview and choose the specific files before the recovery.
- Fully compatible with nearly all iOS devices including iPhone 14/13/12/12 Pro (Max)/11/11 Pro (Max)/Xs Max/8/7 Plus/6S.
Here is how to recover pictures from dead iPhone via iTunes backup by using Doctor for iOS:
Step 1. Launch the program and choose recovery mode
Launch Doctor for iOS on your computer and select the "Recover from iTunes Backup File" mode. Then this software will automatically detect and list all iTunes backup files of your iPhone, iPad or iPod, which has ever synced with iTunes on this computer.
Step 2. Select an iTunes backup to scan files
Select one iTunes backup which contains the photos you want, and click the "Start Scan" button to show all the recoverable file types. Tick off the "Camera Roll" and "Photos" folders, and then click "Start Scan" to display all the files from this iTunes backup on the interface.
Step 3. Start to recover photos from dead iPhone
Preview and select the desired pictures by marking them, and click the "Recover to Computer" button to begin the photos recovery process for the dead iPhone.
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Method 2. How to Get Pictures from A Dead iPhone via iCloud Backup
Another way to get pictures off a dead iPhone is to use icloud. As long as you enable "iCloud Backup" before the iPhone crashes, you can use the same iCloud account on other iOS devices, and then retrieve the lost photos from the iCloud backup.
Like iTunes restore, the only disadvantage of using iCloud backup is that it does not support selective recovery of photos from the backup. Once you decide to restore the iCloud backup, the files in the backup will overwrite all the existing data on your device.
Step by step process to get pictures from a dead iPhone using iCloud.
- On a different iPhone or iPad, go to the Settings > General > Reset > Erase All Content and Settings > Erase Now options. This will erase everything on your iDevice and restore it to factory settings.
- After the reset, the iDevice will restart and you need to follow the on-screen instructions to set it up. Do remember to use the same Apple ID you were using on your dead iPhone.
- When you reach the "Apps & Data" screen, select "Restore from iCloud Backup."
- Choose the right backup file to get back all your photos.
- Complete the rest of the "setup" process. Then you will regain all the photos you want to recover.
Further Reading:
Method 3. How to Extract Photos from Dead iPhone Directly without Backup
Fix Your Dead iPhone before Recovery
If you haven't done any backup of this dead iPhone on iTunes or iCloud, don't worry. We have another way to help you. The powerful Doctor for iOS allows you to retrieve photos directly from the dead iPhone without backing up. But before that, you need to do some first aid work on your dead iPhone.
- Water-damaged iPhone: If you have dropped iPhone into water, the first thing you need to do is to dry off your iPhone as soon as possible to avoid water damage. So just get it out of water, dry it with a towel and put it into dry rice for a few day. And please don't try to turn on iPhone in case of phone short-circuiting for water.
- Screen-broken iPhone: If the iPhone screen is broken but the device can still work, you might send your iPhone to a repair store to fix it.
- iPhone functional error: If some functions on iPhone goes wrong, like iPhone stuck in white/black/red/blue screen of death, iPhone keeps freezing, iPhone keeps turning off randomly and so on, you can use iOS System Recovery, this professional iOS system repair software to repair your iPhone.
iOS System Recovery has been proven to effectively solve some common iOS problems, fixing iPhone from DFU mode, recovery mode, Apple logo, battery drain, headphone mode, etc.. It is also very simple to operate, you only need to run this software, switch to "iOS System Recovery", connect your dead iPhone, and click "Repair", then, your iPhone will be returned to normal state. We have a detailed step-by-step guide on how to use iOS System Recovery.
After the repair is successful, you can use Doctor for iOS to recover photos from the dead iPhone directly without backup.
Recover Photos from Dead/Broken iPhone Directly Using Doctor for iOS
Doctor for iOS can help you recover not only photos, but also contacts, messages, calendars, notes, call history and etc. directly from your iPhone no matter you have created a backup or not. To start with, download and install the tool on your computer.
Step 1. Connect your iPhone to PC
Launch Doctor for iOS and select the "Recover from iOS Device" mode. Connect your iPhone to the computer with a USB cord and then the software will detect your iPhone and shows an interface like below.
Step 2. Scan iPhone for photos recovery
Click the Next button and the software will display all the recoverable file types. Check the "Camera Roll" and "Photos" folders, and click "Start Scan" to scan all pictures on the iPhone.
Step 3. Select the photos to restore
Now, you can preview and select the photos you want to recover. After the photos selection, hit the "Recover to Computer" button to start to recover photos from dead iPhone at once.
Conclusion
iPhone may die due to various reasons. When the iPhone is unresponsive, the thing you want most is to retrieve all the data on the dead iPhone, especially the photos that are extremely precious to you. The above three methods can help you recover photos from dead iPhone.
If you want to achieve zero data loss during the recovery process, be sure to use MobiKin Doctor for iOS. It can work on any Windows and Mac computer, and it can restore data directly from iPhone, or restore files from iTunes backup. It can handle almost all iOS models. Therefore, with the help of this tool, iOS data recovery will become particularly simple.
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