Top 4 Ways To Recover Deleted Data From Your iPhone/iPad

Summary: If you have lost your important data on your iPhone or iPad, the following guide should help you get your lost data back on your devices. It shows multiple methods for data recovery so you can get your lost data back on your iOS devices. Read on to learn how.

Storing your data digitally comes with its own risks such as the device getting faulty or corrupted and you end-up losing your data. Data loss happens to a lot of people every year and even the premium devices like iPhone and iPad are no exception. People lose data on these devices as well due to various reasons.

In the following guide, you are going to find out the reasons why your data gets lost on your iPhone and how you can go about recovering your deleted files and data to your device. The guide covers both the causes as well as the methods to help you understand what’s causing data loss and how you can recover the lost data on your devices.

Here’s everything you need to know about it:

Some Causes of iPhone Data Loss

There are numerous reasons as to why your data may get lost and this section describes some of the common reasons for data loss on iPhone and iPad. It should give you an idea as to what has caused you to lose your files on your iOS devices.

Cause 1. Accidental Data Deletion

Accidental data deletion is one of the main reasons why your data may get lost. This happens when you are playing around with your device and you suddenly end-up choosing something that you should not and it erases your data.

It may happen when you restore your device, during iOS upgrades, and while trying to jailbreak your device.

Cause 2. Device is Inaccessible

If your device is not usable meaning either it keeps crashing, shows black or white screen, keeps rebooting, or it is locked, you will not be able to access data and there are chances your data will get erased from the device.

Cause 3. Device is Lost/Stolen

If you are not careful enough, you may end-up losing your device or someone may steal it from you and you will lose access to all the data that was stored on your device. While this is not a technical form of data loss, it happens to a lot of users and makes them lose their important and valuable files.

Cause 4. Unable to Access Backups

Since most iOS users’ data is stored in their device backups, it is important for you to have access to these backups to be able to access your data. If you are unable to access your iTunes or iCloud backups for any reason, you will not be able to access the data which is equal to losing your data as you do not get access to it no matter what.

How to Restore Lost Data from iTunes

Since almost all the devices out there are prone to data loss attacks, there are some mechanisms that you can use to keep a backup of your data. For iOS devices, you would already know there is a tool called iTunes that lets you easily create and restore backups on your devices.

iTunes allows you to create full data backups of your device so you can restore the data when it is lost on your iPhone or iPad. All it requires you to do is connect your device to your computer using a cable and you are ready to create a data backup of your device.

When you lose data, you can restore the backup and all the data will be available on your iPhone or iPad. That is exactly when iTunes becomes more useful and the following shows how you can restore your data using the iTunes app on your iOS based device.

Step 1: Connect your iPhone or iPad to your computer using a compatible cable and launch the iTunes app on your computer.

Step 2: Click on your device in the app, click on the option that says Summary in the left hand side of your screen, and finally click on the Restore Backup button in the right panel.

Restore an iTunes backup on an iPhone or iPad

Step 3: A prompt will appear on your screen asking you to select a backup to be restored on your device. Click on the dropdown menu, choose the backup you wish to restore, and click on the button that says Restore to start restoring your backup.

Select the backup and get it restored on your device

Step 4: iTunes will start restoring data from your chosen iTunes backup and it will let you know when the backup is fully restored.

You are all set. All of the files contained in your backup should now be available on your iOS based device. You may check it for yourself by opening various apps on your device.

How to Restore iPhone from iCloud to Get Back Deleted Data

If you had backed up your iPhone or iPad to iCloud before you lost data on your device, you can sign-in to your iCloud account and restore your backup to regain access to your lost data. Restoring an iCloud backup is pretty much the same as restoring an iTunes backup except the iCloud backup is fetched from the Internet whereas iTunes uses local files for your backups.

If you have a stable Internet connection ready with yourself and you are ready to restore your iCloud backup, the following is what you need to do.

Step 1: You will need to first erase your device and reset it to factory settings. Open the Settings app on your device and tap on General followed by Reset. When the reset screen opens, tap on the option that says Erase All Content and Settings.

Erase content and reset the iPhone/iPad to factory settings

Step 2: Follow the on-screen instructions to reset your device. When you set up your device, choose the Restore from iCloud Backup option and then choose a backup to be restored on your device.

Your device will establish a connection to iCloud servers and fetch your iPhone or iPad backup. It will then start restoring your files one by one and you will be notified when it is done.

Congrats, your lost data is now available to use on your device.

Professional Tools to Recover Deleted Data

While the methods mentioned above should get the job done for you, there are a few drawbacks of using those methods. First, they do not let you selectively restore data on your device which is a headache as you may want to retrieve some deleted specific text messages only, for example, but the method forces you to restore everything on your device. Second, they do not always work and help you recover your data for various technical issues.

Fortunately, there are developers who understand your pain and they have come up with professional tools to help you recover your data. What these tools to is they use intelligent algorithms to find your lost data and help you restore it on your devices.

One of these apps is PhoneRescue that allows you to recover data on your iOS devices effortlessly. All you need to do is tell the app what kind of data you would like to recover and it will take care of the rest for you. At the end, you will have your data restored wherever you want on your device.

The following is how it works:

Step 1: Head over to the PhoneRescue website and download and install the app on your computer.

Step 2: Plug-in your iOS device to your computer, click on the Recover from iOS Device option in the app, and then click on the right-arrow icon as shown below.

Recover data from an iOS device using PhoneRescue

Step 3: On the following screen, you will be asked what type of data you would like to recover from your device. Select any data type and click on the OK button to continue.

Select the type of the data to be recovered

Step 4: The following screen will let you preview the data that you are about to recover. Select the items you would like to recover and click on the To Device button.

Restore recovered data on the device

The app will send the recovered data to your device and you will find the data in its relevant app on your device.

As you can see, it’s extremely easy to use a professional tool to recover your data with a few steps.

Conclusion

If you ever face a data loss situation with your iOS based device like an iPhone or iPad, the above guide should help you recover the lost data on your device. You have multiple methods to recover the data and at least one of them will help you out.