Save recently deleted photos

nilsu16 wrote:

"Hello, I accidentally deleted some photos from the 'Recently Deleted' folder in my iCloud Photos, and then I emptied/deleted the trash via iCloud.com. The 30-day deletion period has not expired. Can you help me recover these deleted photos, which are still kept in the background on Apple servers, before they are permanently deleted?"

The 30-day deletion period only applies to photos left in 'Recently Deleted'; after 30 days, they will be automatically deleted forever. Manually deleting them sooner simply bypasses this timer and erases them immediately. Unfortunately, the photos you delete are permanently gone unless you had them in a device backup previously.

If you had a device backup from before deleting the photos, you can recover them by restoring your backup. Note that this will essentially return your device to the state of when the backup was made, and nothing added to your device after this point will be saved.

When we select pictures to remove them from "Recently Deleted," we get this warning before the final step:

The pictures are in fact erased permanently.

About iCloud Backup: You would have to get to the backup quickly, usually within a day, before the backup is replaced by a newer one. However, if you did have iCloud Photos enabled, then the iCloud Backup wouldn't make an extra copy.

Perhaps you have shared your pictures with friends-- then you could get them to send copies back to you.

Unfortunately, if you don't keep your own backups to an external drive, then there really isn't any place else to look. To back up your pictures you can just plug in an external drive, select the pictures, and use Share>Save to Files. Alternatively, you can backup to a computer:

Transfer photos and videos from your iPhone or iPad to your Mac or PC

If you haven't done one of those backups, then your remaining pictures continue to be in peril.