How To Find Recently Deleted Files On iPhone Or iPad
Being designed to streamline and simplify the smartphone and tablet user interface has been a strength of iOS and iPadOS for some time. The thing is, that choice has sometimes resulted in the obfuscation of a few common tasks found on other mobile platforms and computers.
Deleting apps or photos may be a relatively simple process, butdeleting other types of files on an iPhonerequires a little more work — or even manually installing a third-party app. The same goes for recovering deleted items. Deleted apps can be redownloaded from the App Store as long as you’re logged in with the same Apple ID that you used to install them in the first place, but what can you do about a document, text file, audio file, PDF, etc. that might have accidentally wound up in whatever qualifies as the Trash in iOS?
Fear not! Recovering something that was recently deleted from your iPhone or iPad is a relatively simple process. It’s just a little less obvious than with other platforms, and you might need to install an extra app or two to help you out.
Finding deleted files in the Apple Files app
Apple’s iOS platform doesn’t make it easy to find most files that aren’t photos or videos without a little help.The Files appis the official app built for that purpose, but you may need to manually download it before you go digging. You can download and install it from theApp Store— be sure that it shows Apple as the seller. You may also need tounhide the app icon on your iPhoneonce it’s downloaded. Here is how to find recently deleted files in the Files app on both iPhone and iPad:
Deleted files are stored for 30 days, after which they are permanently removed, and you won’t be able to recover them. Additionally, if you choose to delete any files in the Recently Deleted section before the 30 days are up, they will be gone for good.
Finding deleted photos and videos in Photos app
Recovering deleted pictures or videos can be done through the default Photos app (which you should already have on your iPhone or iPad) and is a similar process — as long as it’s been less than 30 days since you chose to delete them.
Recovered media will reappear in the spot it was originally saved to in the primary Recents album as well as in other albums it was added to before being deleted.
Using Documents by Readdle to find deleted files
Readdle’s Documents app isn’t just handy forsaving YouTube videos to your iPhone(though it does help with that), it’s also a useful file management app, kind of like an alternative to Files. Just as with Files and Photos, deleted items will be gone forever after 30 days. Also be aware that the Documents app will only let you recover files that were deleted using the Documents app — if you deleted something outside of the Documents app you won’t be able to recover it using this method.
It’s also possible to recover a file in Documents as soon as you delete it (if, for example, it was deleted by mistake). When a file is deleted in Documents, a pop-up will appear for five seconds, giving you the option to choose Put Back to undo the action.
