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There’s an Easy Way to Restore Deleted iCloud Files

ResidentialBusiness
ResidentialBusiness
in Setting Up Your Home Office

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The next time you accidentally delete something from iCloud, you don't need to head to four different pages to recover it. Instead, you can head to iCloud's Data Recovery page and find almost everything you need in one spot. This page lets you recover deleted files from iCloud Drive, Calendar, and Contacts, and it also retains deleted Safari bookmarks.

How to use iCloud's data recovery page

Even if your iCloud account is linked to Apple services, you probably don't log in to its website that often. I usually go to my iPhone's settings to check all iCloud-related information, but not everything is easy to find there. That's why you might have missed iCloud's Data Recovery page, which is well-designed and puts all the information you need neatly in various cards for you to access. Once you open the website and log in with your Apple Account, you'll see four cards:

  • Restore Files

  • Restore Bookmarks

  • Restore Contacts

  • Restore Calendars

You can click any card for more information. The Restore Files card shows all the documents deleted from your Files app in the last 30 days, but note that it will only show files synced with iCloud Drive, so it won't be able to help you with locally stored files. Click "Restore Files," to see an option to either un-delete your files, or alternatively, permanently delete them. You can do this on a per-file basis, too, if you'd like to keep some but get rid of others.

Similarly, click any of the other cards to see any bookmarks, calendars, or contacts you've deleted over the past 30 days, as well as be able to either get rid of them for good or restore them to your account. You should know, however, that contacts work a little differently. When you're restoring contacts, you have to select an archive of your contacts list from the past 30 days, and doing so will change your list of contacts to match that archive. This means that contacts you've added since that list was archived will be removed from your account and backed up in a new archive. Unfortunately, you can't restore just one or two deleted contacts using this method.

Recovering deleted photos on iCloud

Unfortunately, the data recovery page doesn't include photos. To recover those, you'll have to visit a different webpage. Go to iCloud.com, click Photos, and select the Recently Deleted album in the left pane. Alternatively, you may follow this direct link or open the Photos app on your iPhone/iPad, scroll to the Utilities section, and tap Recently Deleted. This will allow you to restore deleted iCloud photos.

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