Recovering deleted photos or files
Deleted rarely means gone. For about a month, most things are sitting in a folder you can open.
What's usually going on
Phones and computers keep deleted items for a while before removing them for good, and cloud services keep their own copies. The danger is time, and carrying on using a device whose files were truly erased, which can overwrite them.
Worth trying first
Check Recently Deleted.
In Photos on an iPhone, iPad, or Mac, find the Recently Deleted album. Items stay there for about 30 days.
Check the Trash or Recycle Bin.
On a Mac, open the Trash. On Windows, open the Recycle Bin. Right-click the item and choose Put Back or Restore.
Check the cloud.
Sign in at icloud.com, photos.google.com, or onedrive.com and look in the trash or recently deleted folder there. It is often separate from the one on your device.
Look for a backup.
Time Machine on a Mac, File History on Windows, or an older phone backup may still hold what you need.
If it's truly gone, stop using the device.
New files can overwrite deleted ones. Stop saving anything to that drive or card until someone has looked at it.
When to hand it over
If none of those turn it up, or the drive itself has failed. We'll tell you plainly whether it's recoverable and whether it needs a specialist recovery lab. Then we'll set up a backup so it can't happen twice.
Your own technologist, on call.
Tell us a little about your setup. We'll take it from there.