How to Recover Photos from Dead or Broken iPhone/iPad

User Concern

“Is it possible to retrieve my photos from my dead iPhone? It has water damage and no longer turns on. I had important pictures of my newborn son, but I did not back up the phone. Is there anything that can be done to get photos off the dead iPhone?”

Have you ever run into the same situation: your iPhone is totally dead or broken for some unexpected reason and won't turn on? At that time, what you care about most may be the important files like photos saved on your iPhone.

Is it possible to retrieve photos from a dead or broken iPhone? In this article, we will focus on this issue and share some possible ways to get photos of dead or broken iPhone. Keep reading to check out.

Can You Retrieve Photos from A Dead iPhone?

Absolutely YES. You can retrieve photos from a dead or broken iPhone if you have previously created backups of the iPhone via iCloud or iTunes. You can easily restore the backup to another iOS device to get back your photos.

If you haven't backed up your iPhone before it is dead or broken, but your computer still recognizes the device, you can bring back the photos. You can rely on a third-party iPhone data recovery tool to scan the dead iPhone and export the photos directly.

How to Recover Photos from A Dead iPhone without Backup?

In case you don't create any backup of your dead or broken iPhone but the phone is still recognized by your computer, a professional iPhone data recovery tool will help you get the photos off the device. FoneGeek iPhone Data Recovery is designed to recover deleted or lost data from iPhone/iPad/iPod directly without backup.

Key Features of FoneGeek iPhone Data Recovery:

• Supports to recover 20+ types of iPhone data, including photos, videos, contacts, messages, notes, voice memos, WhatsApp messages, etc.
• Extract and selectively recover data from iTunes or iCloud backup without restoring the iPhone.
• Allows you to free scan and preview all photos and other files before recovery.
• Supports all iOS devices and iOS versions, including iPhone 15/14, iOS 17/16 and earlier.

To start with, you can download FoneGeek iPhone Data Recovery by clicking the button below and have it installed on your computer.

Step 1. Launch the iPhone Photo Recovery on your computer and select "Recover Data from iOS Devices" on the homepage.

Step 2. If the computer can still recognize your dead/broken iPhone, connect it to the computer and click "Next" when the program detects the device.

Step 3. Choose "Photos" and other data types you wish to recover, then click on "Scan" to begin scanning.

Step 4. When the scan is done, click "Photos" from the left sidebar to view and check the items that you need to retrieve. Then click "Recover to PC" to export the selected photos to your computer.

Recover Photos from Dead/Broken iPhone with iCloud

If you have enabled iCloud Photos on your dead or broken iPhone beforehand, then all your photos will automatically sync to iCloud. If  the computer cannot recognize your iPhone, you can bring back photos from iCloud.

3.1 Download Photos from iCloud.com

• Visit iCloud.com on any browser and sign in with the same Apple ID you use on the dead iPhone.
• Click on "Photos" and select the photos you need, then click "Download" to save them to your computer.

If you have another iOS device available, you can log in with the same Apple ID and turn on "iCloud Photos" on this device, then your iCloud photos will be synced to the new device automatically. However, the existing photos on this new device will be overwritten, so don't forget to make a backup before doing this.

3.2 Recover Photos from iCloud Backup

If the iCloud sync process goes wrong on the new device, you can also get photos of a dead iPhone by restoring another iOS device from the iCloud backup. However, you will need to erase the iPhone before restoring it.

• On the iOS device, go to Settings > General > Transfer or Reset iPhone and choose "Erase All Content and Settings."
• Go through the setup procedure until you reach the "Apps & Data" screen, then choose "Restore from iCloud Backup."
• Sign in to iCloud with your Apple ID and choose the most recent backup of your dead iPhone to restore.

Please note that you will risk losing the data on  the iPhone, and you can't recover photos only.  So, we suggest you use FoneGeek iPhone Data Recovery to recover photos from iCloud backup selectively. Launch this program on your computer and select "Recover Data from iCloud," then follow these steps:

Step 1. As you can see in the windows below, sign in to iCloud by entering your Apple ID and password.

Step 2. Once logged in, you can browse a list of iCloud backup files, choose one backup that may contain the photos of your dead iPhone, and click "Scan" to download the iCloud backup file.

Step 3. When the download process is complete, the software will show you details of all the data in iCloud backup. You can preview and tick the photos you need, then click "Recover to PC" to save them on your computer.

Recover Photos from Dead/Broken iPhone with iTunes

If you have backed up your iPhone to iTunes before it is dead or broken, then the photos will be stored in the backup. And you could bring back the photos by restoring the backup to another iOS device. Just follow these steps:

1. Launch iTunes and connect a workable iPhone to the computer via a USB cable.
2. Select the iPhone in the main window and choose "Restore Backup" under the Backups menu.
3. Now, choose the backup file you want to restore and click "Restore." Then wait for the restore process to finish.

Similar to iCloud, iTunes will erase all existing data while restoring the backup, so you can follow the steps below to get photos off iTunes backup with FoneGeek iPhone Data Recovery.

Step 1: Run this tool and choose "Recover Data from iTunes Backup." Then select an iTunes backup that contains your lost photos and click "Next."

Step 2: On the next page, choose "Photos" and click "Scan," the program will start to scan the photos from the backup.

Step 3: After the scanning, all found photos will be displayed. Just choose the items you need and click "Recover to PC" to save them to your computer.

The Bottom Line

That's all about how to recover photos from dead or broken iPhone. You will find workable solutions in this post whether you have backed up the dead iPhone or not. And the most recommended method is to use FoneGeek iPhone Data Recovery. With this tool, you are able to recover photos directly from a dead iPhone if it can be detected. Also, you can get photos off iTunes or iCloud backup to your computer without any data loss.