- My wife’s iPhone 4S just died. It won’t turn on and doesn’t charge. It’s basically a brick right now. She needs to recover the photos on it. Is there any way to recover photos from the iTunes backup files?
- I backed up my iPad 2 last month to iTunes. Yesterday my daughter left my iPad on the trunk of my car and we drove away, destroying the iPad completely. How/where can I find the photos that were backed up from the iPad 2?
- I recently had my phone stolen while out with some friends. I’m really bummed out about losing my iPhone, but that can be replaced. What I’m really worried about is getting some of the photos I stored on my phone but never transferred into iPhoto. Is there a way to get to my photos using the backup without iPhone?
Method 1: Recover Photos from a Backup by Restoring an iPhone/iPad
The simplest way to recover pictures from an iPhone backup is to restore iPhone/iPad from the most recent backup made.
Requirements:
- A workable iPhone or iPad
- The latest version of iTunes
- A backup made through iTunes - encrypted or not doesn’t matter
- An USB cable
- Plug iPhone/iPad into computer via the USB cable, and iTunes will launch automatically. If not, you need to manually start it.
- Click File > Device > Restore from Backup, and then choose the iTunes backup in the pop-up dialog. Click “Restore” at the right bottom of the dialog.
- iTunes will make a confirmation again. Click “OK” and then iTunes will start restoring iPhone/iPad with the iTunes backup.
Method 2: Recover iPhone/iPad Photos from Backup with iPhone Backup Extractor
If you don’t have an iPhone/iPad handy and you’re only working with an iTunes backup file, you’re going to need to extract photos from iPhone backup file. This can be done through a third-party app - Yolisoft iPhone Backup Extractor. It is complete free, you can use it to scan your iPhone backup file and check whether or not there are any pictures available to extract. This application offers a preview of the images and a photo total count.
- A computer has the latest version of iTunes installed
- An unencrypted iPhone backup file stored on the computer, as created through iTunes
- Yolisoft Free iPhone Backup Extractor
- Download and install iPhone Backup Extractor Free on your computer, then start the program from your desktop.
- The software will auto-detect all the iTunes backup files on this computer. Choose the iTunes backup you wish to extract photos from and click “Next”.
- Choose Camera Roll, Photo Stream, App Photos from the file type list, and then click “Next” to scan photos in the backup.
- After the scan, the program displays thumbnails of all the images in the iTunes backup. Select the images you wish to save on your computer and proceed to click the “Recover” button.
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