With iOS devices like iPhones becoming an increasingly popular way to take photos, many users are concerned about whether their photos are truly deleted when they choose to erase them. This issue has gained more attention recently as Apple announced plans to stop storing photos in its My Photo Stream service starting in July 2023.
In this article, we will examine how iOS handles photo deletion normally, methods for recovering recently deleted photos, using third-party apps for recovery, professional forensic data recovery, what permanent deletion entails, the role of iCloud backups, external storage, and advice for users to keep their photos safe. The goal is to provide a comprehensive look at whether deleted photos on iPhones are really gone for good.
How iOS Deletes Photos
When you delete a photo on an iPhone, it doesn’t immediately disappear from your device’s storage. Instead, iOS moves the photo to a hidden album called “Recently Deleted.”
Photos in the Recently Deleted album are kept for 30 days before being permanently erased. During those 30 days, deleted photos remain in your phone’s storage, just not visible in the Photos app.
The Recently Deleted album serves as a safety net in case you accidentally delete an important photo. You can recover photos from the Recently Deleted album by opening it and restoring the photos back to the Photos app.
After 30 days, iOS performs an irreversible deletion of photos in the Recently Deleted album. At this point, the photos are permanently removed from all storage locations on your device.
So in summary, when you delete a photo on an iPhone, it is not immediately erased. The photo continues occupying storage space for 30 days until final deletion by iOS.
Recovering Recently Deleted Photos
One way iPhone users can recover recently deleted photos is by using the ‘Recently Deleted’ album. When photos are deleted from the Photos app on an iPhone, they are not immediately erased. Instead, they are moved to the Recently Deleted folder, where they remain for 30 days before being permanently deleted.
The Recently Deleted folder acts as a safety net, giving users a chance to recover photos that were accidentally or unintentionally deleted. To access it, open the Photos app and select the Albums tab. Scroll down to find the Recently Deleted album.
Any photos deleted within the last 30 days will be available in this album. Simply tap on a photo to recover it, which will move it back to the Camera Roll or other album it originated from. Users can also select multiple photos to restore at once.
It’s important to note that the deleted photos are only stored in the Recently Deleted album temporarily for those 30 days. After that time, the photos are permanently erased and can no longer be recovered using this method.
So if you notice an important photo is missing, be sure to check the Recently Deleted album as soon as possible to rescue it. Don’t wait until after the 30 day period has passed, or the photo will be gone for good.
For a quick way to recover recently deleted iPhone photos, the Recently Deleted album is a handy built-in option. Just remember that it’s not indefinite – you only have a limited 30 days before those deleted shots are permanently wiped from your device.
Third-Party Recovery Apps
While deleted photos may seem permanently gone from your iPhone, there are third-party apps that can scan your iPhone’s storage and recover recently deleted photos. Some popular and effective options include:
iMyFone D-Back – This app can recover deleted photos, videos, contacts, messages and more from iOS devices. It scans your storage and retrieves deleted files that haven’t been overwritten yet. iMyFone D-Back has a user-friendly interface and offers both free trial and paid versions.
FonePaw iPhone Data Recovery – Another highly rated app for recovering lost and deleted data from iOS devices. FonePaw scans your iPhone storage thoroughly and allows you to preview recoverable photos before restoring them. The free version has limited functionality while the paid version enables full recovery capabilities.
These third-party apps work by directly scanning the raw storage of your iOS device. So even without an iCloud backup, they can dig up deleted photos and other files that may seem permanently gone when using the iPhone interface alone. As long as the storage hasn’t been overwritten by new data, there’s a good chance of recovering deleted photos with these tools.
Forensic Data Recovery
Even after the 30-day window when deleted photos are removed from the ‘Recently Deleted’ folder, it is still possible to recover them forensically using advanced data recovery tools and techniques. When a photo is deleted from an iPhone, it is not immediately wiped from the storage memory. The space it previously occupied is simply marked as available to be overwritten by new data. As long as that space has not been overwritten, data recovery software can scan the raw storage and rebuild the deleted photos.
Specialized forensic recovery tools like AnyRecover and iMyFone D-Back can extract residual data from an iPhone’s storage using advanced recovery algorithms. They can recover photos, messages, contacts and other data types. To use these tools effectively, it is recommended to create a full forensic image or backup of the iPhone storage first, before scanning and recovering the deleted data.
Forensic data recovery requires technical expertise and specialized software tools not available to everyday users. But for those with the right skills and tools, it provides a last resort to recover deleted iPhone photos even after the 30-day window has passed.
Permanent Deletion
Completely removing photos from an iPhone so that they cannot be recovered requires overwriting the data or physically destroying the device. When you delete a photo normally, it simply removes the reference to the data – the actual photo data still exists on the storage until it gets overwritten with new data. To prevent recovery, the storage must be overwritten multiple times with random data to completely replace the original photo data. Some tools like ShredIt can securely overwrite deleted files by writing over the storage sectors 7 times according to Department of Defense standards.
For even greater security against advanced forensic data recovery methods, the only option is to physically destroy the device storage. Physical destruction through crushing, shredding or incineration will make it virtually impossible to recover deleted photos. Encrypting the storage can also help by scrambling the data, requiring the encryption key to unscramble and access photos. So for truly permanent iPhone photo deletion, overwriting or physical destruction combined with encryption provide maximum data removal security.
iCloud Backups
Even after deleting photos from your iPhone’s camera roll, the photos may persist in your iCloud backups. iCloud automatically backs up your iPhone data including photos, messages, settings etc. on a regular basis. So even if you delete a photo from your camera roll, it will remain saved in your previous iCloud backups.
To truly delete the photos from iCloud, you need to delete the backups as well. Here’s how to delete iCloud backups on iPhone to remove deleted photos (source):
- Open the Settings app on your iPhone.
- Tap on your Apple ID profile at the top.
- Select iCloud > Manage Storage > Backups.
- Tap on your device backup > Delete Backup.
This will remove the iCloud backup containing the deleted photos. Going forward, new backups will not have those photos. Keep in mind that deleting a backup also removes other data like messages, so you may wish to download data before deleting.
Removable Storage
When you store photos on external or removable storage like an SD card or external hard drive, deleting the photos from your iPhone’s storage does not delete them from the external storage. The removable storage acts as a separate storage location, so photos are only removed from the iPhone’s built-in storage when deleted in the Photos app.
For example, if you store photos on an external SD card plugged into your iPhone, then delete those photos from the Photos app, the photos will be removed from your iPhone storage but remain on the SD card. To permanently delete the photos from the SD card, you would need to delete them directly from the card, such as by using a computer.
So deleting photos in the Photos app only frees up storage on your iPhone itself. The photos stored on external or removable storage remain unless deleted directly from that external device. This gives you a way to free up space on your iPhone without permanently losing photos stored on SD cards, external drives, etc.
Advice for Users
If you want to permanently delete sensitive photos from your iPhone, here are some tips:
Use a secure delete app like iShredder Pro (Source). This will overwrite your photos multiple times to prevent forensic recovery.
Enable encryption on your iPhone using a passcode (Source). This will make it much harder for someone to access deleted photos.
Backup your iPhone, then reset it to factory settings. This will wipe all data including photos.
Remove the physical storage chip if you need absolute deletion. This prevents any sort of data recovery, but will disable your device.
Avoid using iCloud Photo Library, as deleted photos may persist in the cloud storage. Disable auto-backups as well.
Store sensitive photos only on removable storage like an SD card, and securely discard the card when no longer needed.
Use a password/fingerprint to access the Photos app and enable “Show Screen While Locked” so photos cannot be accessed if your iPhone is locked.
Conclusion
In summary, while deleted photos may seem to vanish from your iPhone forever, there are still several ways they can potentially be recovered, depending on the situation:
- If deleted recently, photos may be retrievable from the ‘Recently Deleted’ album for up to 30 days.
- Third-party data recovery apps can sometimes find deleted photos, but success rates vary.
- Forensic-level data recovery can reconstruct deleted files, but costs are prohibitive for most.
- iCloud and other backups may retain copies of deleted photos unless the backup was made after deletion.
- Storing photos exclusively on remote cloud services or removable storage ensures deletion.
In most real-world scenarios, the average iPhone user need not worry about deleted photos being resurrected. However, for those requiring absolute assurance of permanent deletion, manually deleting from all locations is necessary.