How to Recover Deleted Photos & Videos from Your iPhone or iPad in iOS 8

What happens when you accidentally delete a photo or video from your iPad or iPhone? How do you get it back?

If your iOS device is jailbroken, you can use a free command line program like PhotoRec to recover the media. If it's not jailbroken, there are some third-party softwares that might help you out—at a price, of course.

The best option is to just make sure you regularly back up your iPhone and use some type of cloud backup service to store your media files, that way if you accidentally delete something, you'll still have access to it.

But now, in Apple's upcoming iOS 8, you'll no longer have to worry about recovery tools or performing backups. Apple has taken a preemptive approach to accidental deletions by allowing you to easily recover pictures or videos directly from your iPad or iPhone.

From the Albums page in your Photos app, you'll see that a Recently Deleted album now exists at the bottom of the page. Select it and voilà—all of the photos that you've deleted will be in this folder.

To recover a picture, select it and tap on Recover. The picture will go back to your regular Camera Roll album, in the same position where it originally was.

"Recently Deleted" album in iOS 8.

Select pics and hit "Recover" to undo deletion.

"Recently Deleted" album in iOS 8.

Select pics and hit "Recover" to undo deletion.

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If you want to permanently delete a picture or video, select it and hit Delete in the Recently Deleted album. You'll be asked to confirm the delete action, because this time, it's for real.

Only delete things from Recently Deleted that you know you don't want.

If you delete the wrong picture(s) here, you'll have to try out one of the aforementioned recovery options above, though there is no guarantee.

There is also no way to disable the Recently Deleted album, in case you don't want it, and there is no official statement as to how long deleted items will remain in the folder before being automatically wiped from the device. Though they will obviously take up room on your iPhone, the album will not be synced across devices, so you don't have to worry about that.

More iOS 8 Tips...

To see what else you can do in Apple's latest mobile operating system, check out the Coolest Hidden Features of iOS 8, as well as the Best Hidden Safari Features, Top Hidden Features in Messages, and our other iOS 8 tips.

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