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How to Recover Deleted Screenshots on iPhone and Mac

Name: Pizazoo
Author: Pizazoo

Recover deleted screenshots on iPhone, iPad and Mac: Recently Deleted, iCloud.com, the Trash, Time Machine, and what still works after the 30 days.

October 6, 20269 min read

Muhammed BasilFounder & maker of Pizazoo

To recover a deleted screenshot on iPhone or iPad, open Photos, tap Collections, tap Recently Deleted (below Utilities), tap View Album and unlock with Face ID, Touch ID or your passcode, then select the screenshot, tap the More button and tap Recover. Deleted screenshots stay in Recently Deleted for 30 days. On a Mac, look in the Trash first, then in iCloud Drive, Photos and Time Machine.

After those 30 days, Apple is clear that Recently Deleted can't help, so the rest of this guide covers what still can: other copies, backups (and when they are useless), and the clipboard. Steps follow Apple's guides for iOS 27, iOS 26 and macOS 27, with older versions noted.

Where can a deleted screenshot still be?

Where it was	Where it goes when deleted	How long it stays
Photos on iPhone or iPad	Recently Deleted in Photos (also on iCloud.com with iCloud Photos)	30 days
Photos on Mac	Recently Deleted in Photos	30 days
Mac Desktop or another folder	The Trash	Until you empty it, or 30 days if auto-empty is on
Desktop or Documents stored in iCloud Drive	The Trash, plus Recently Deleted on iCloud.com	30 days
Copied to the Mac clipboard only	Spotlight Clipboard history (macOS 26 or later)	30 minutes to 7 days
Anywhere, after those windows	A backup that actually contains it	As long as the backup exists

How do I recover deleted screenshots on iPhone?

Screenshots are saved in the Photos app like any other image, so a deleted one lands in Recently Deleted. In iOS 27 and iOS 26 (Apple):

Open Photos and tap Collections.
Tap Recently Deleted (below Utilities), tap View Album, then unlock your iPhone.
Tap Select and choose the screenshots you want back.
Tap the More button, then tap Recover.

For a single screenshot you can also open it and tap Recover (Apple), and the More menu offers Recover All when you want everything back; confirm with Recover (Apple). Recovered screenshots return to your library, and with iCloud Photos on, to your other devices too.

Older versions use a different path (Apple):

iOS 18: open Photos, swipe up, then tap Recently Deleted in the Utilities section.
iOS 17: tap Albums, swipe up, then tap Recently Deleted below Utilities. Apple's iOS 17 guide also notes that if you shake your iPhone within 8 minutes of deleting, you can tap Undo Delete (Apple, iOS 17).

iPad uses the same steps in iPadOS (Apple).

Why does Recently Deleted ask for Face ID?

Since iOS 16 (and iPadOS 16.1), the Recently Deleted and Hidden collections are locked by default (Apple). Unlock them with Face ID, Touch ID or your passcode. To stop the prompt in iOS 27, go to Settings > Apps > Photos and turn off Use Face ID, Use Touch ID or Use Passcode (Apple). In iOS 17 the same switches are in Settings > Photos.

What if the screenshot isn't in Recently Deleted?

Look in Recovered. Since iOS 18, iPadOS 18 and macOS Sequoia 15.1, Photos shows a Recovered collection in Utilities when it finds images on the device that are not part of your library, for example after a library database problem or a save that failed (Apple). Open it, tap the screenshot, then tap Restore to Library. Deleting from Recovered is permanent and skips Recently Deleted, and the collection only appears when there is something in it.
Check Hidden. A hidden screenshot is not deleted; it only appears in the Hidden collection. See where are screenshots on iPhone for the unhide steps.
Ask the person who added it. In an iCloud Shared Photo Library, anyone can delete an item, but "only the person who added the photo or video to the Shared Library can permanently delete or recover it from the Recently Deleted folder" (Apple). If someone else shared the screenshot, they have to recover it.
Was it ever saved? In iOS 26 and iOS 27, a new screenshot opens full screen, and tapping the Close button cancels or deletes it instead of saving it (Apple). That button sits on the left, where many people expect a save button, which is how screenshots vanish by accident (The Mac Observer). Apple does not say whether a discarded preview goes to Recently Deleted. If it is not there, it most likely never reached your library. Our iPhone screenshot not working guide explains how to stop it happening again.

How do I see deleted screenshots on iCloud.com?

If you use iCloud Photos, the same Recently Deleted album is on the web, which helps when your iPhone is lost, broken or out of reach (Apple):

Go to icloud.com/photos and sign in with your Apple Account.
Select Recently Deleted in the sidebar. If the sidebar is hidden, click the Show Sidebar button in the upper-left corner (Apple).
Select the screenshots, then select Recover.

Whatever you recover or delete there changes on every device that uses iCloud Photos.

Can you recover screenshots deleted more than 30 days ago?

Not from Photos. Apple's wording: after 30 days, "it's permanently deleted and you can't get it back" (Apple). What can still work is a copy that lives outside your photo library.

Is there another copy somewhere?

Messages: open the conversation, tap the contact or group icon at the top, swipe left, then tap Photos to see every image in that chat (Apple).
Mail, Notes and chat apps: search for the email, note or thread you attached it to.
Another library: a Mac or iPad whose Photos library does not use iCloud Photos keeps its own copies.

Will restoring an iPhone backup bring it back?

Usually not, and many recovery guides skip this part. Apple lists what backups skip: iCloud backups don't include "Photos, if you turned on iCloud Photos," and computer backups don't include "data already synced and stored in iCloud, like iCloud Photos" (Apple). If iCloud Photos was on, your screenshots were never in the backup, and the deletion already synced everywhere.

A backup helps only if iCloud Photos was off when it was made, and it was made before you deleted the screenshot. Even then, weigh the cost (Apple):

iCloud backup: you must erase the iPhone first, then choose From iCloud Backup during setup.
Computer backup: connect the iPhone, select it in the Finder (or the Apple Devices app on Windows), then click Restore Backup.
Either way, the iPhone's current contents are replaced by the backup's. Photos, messages and files created since that backup are lost unless they are stored somewhere else, so copy them off first.

Can a Mac's Time Machine backup help?

Sometimes, and it is an often overlooked route for iPhone screenshots. If your Mac's Photos library syncs with iCloud Photos and keeps full originals, Time Machine backs those up. Apple notes that when you restore the System Photo Library from Time Machine, "any photos you've deleted since the last Time Machine backup are restored to your Mac and uploaded to iCloud again." The catch: if Photos on the Mac uses Optimize Mac Storage, Time Machine may not have the originals (Apple).

To try it, quit Photos, choose Enter Time Machine from the Time Machine menu, pick a backup from before the deletion, select your photo library, then click Restore. The library returns to its state at that backup (Apple).

Does iPhone recovery software work?

Be skeptical once Recently Deleted is empty. Apple encrypts every file on an iPhone with its own key, stored in that file's metadata (Apple Platform Security), so an iPhone is not like an old hard drive where deleted files linger in readable form. Many of the pages promising to "recover deleted screenshots" are written by companies selling recovery tools, and the methods they describe come down to the same backup restores covered above, which you can do yourself for free.

How do I recover deleted screenshots on Mac?

Mac screenshots are files, saved to the Desktop by default (where do screenshots go on Mac), so a deleted one goes to the Trash.

From the Trash

Click the Trash in the Dock, select the screenshot, then choose File > Put Back or drag it out (Apple). Items stay until you empty the Trash, unless Remove items from the Trash after 30 days is selected in Finder > Settings > Advanced. Items deleted from iCloud Drive are always emptied from the Trash after 30 days, whatever that setting says.

From iCloud Drive

With Desktop & Documents Folders turned on, your Desktop screenshots live in iCloud Drive. For 30 days after deletion, you can get them back on the web (Apple):

Go to icloud.com/iclouddrive, select Recently Deleted, then select Recover or Recover All.
If they are not there, go to icloud.com/recovery, select Restore Files, choose the files, then select Restore Files again.

If old screenshots vanished right after you turned Desktop & Documents off, they were not deleted: Apple says existing files stay in iCloud Drive and macOS creates a new, empty Desktop (Apple). Look in iCloud Drive, and check for an iCloud Drive (Archive) folder in your home folder (Apple).

From Time Machine

Open the folder the screenshot was in (for the Desktop, you don't need a window), open Time Machine with Spotlight, use the arrows to go back to a backup from before the deletion, select the file, and click Restore (Apple).

From Photos on Mac

If the screenshot was in Photos, click Recently Deleted below Utilities in the sidebar, click View Album if it is locked, select it and click Recover (Apple).

What if the screenshot only went to the clipboard?

Then no file was ever made. That happens when Clipboard is selected under Options in Shift-Command-5, or when you hold Control while taking the screenshot (Apple). Paste it with Command-V right away, before you copy anything else.

In macOS Tahoe 26 and macOS 27, Spotlight can also search your Clipboard history: press Command-Space, then press Command-4, find the item and press Command-C (Apple). The first time, macOS may ask you to allow Clipboard results. The settings live in System Settings > Spotlight, where macOS 26.1 and later keep items for 30 minutes, 8 hours or 7 days (MacRumors), and the history covers images as well as text (Austin MacWorks). If too much time has passed, the screenshot is gone.

iPhone has no clipboard history. If you used Copy and Delete after a screenshot (an option MacRumors documented in iOS 16), the only copy is wherever you pasted it.

Can Pizazoo keep a second copy of your screenshots?

Disclosure: we make Pizazoo. Pizazoo is a screenshot organizer, not a recovery tool, so it cannot bring back a screenshot that was deleted before Pizazoo imported it. For the ones it has imported, it adds a second safety net:

Its own Trash. Screenshots you delete in Pizazoo stay restorable for 30 days, on Mac and on iPhone and iPad.
iPhone and iPad: with Remove from Photos after import on, Pizazoo asks first ("Remove N from Photos"), then moves the originals to Photos' Recently Deleted, where they stay for 30 days, while Pizazoo keeps its copy. A screenshot that is gone from Photos may still be in Pizazoo, searchable by the text inside it.
Mac: Pizazoo copies screenshots into its own library. With Delete originals after import on, the originals are permanently deleted from the source folder, so a screenshot missing from your Desktop may be in Pizazoo's library instead.

Pizazoo for iPhone and iPad is free on iOS 17 or later, and Pizazoo for Mac has a free tier.