Learn how to recover recently deleted files from iCloud Drive on Apple devices that you may have trashed accidentally or still need.
Because iCloud Drive stores your files in the cloud, deleting a document from your iCloud Drive makes it vanish on all your devices using the same Apple account. If you need to recover a recently deleted file from your iCloud Drive, you can do so using your iPhone, iPad, Mac, or any device with a browser, and we show you how.
iPhone and iPad
Open the built-on Files app and select the Browse tab, then tap it again to go to the root menu.
Select Recently Deleted in the Locations section to view files you’ve recently deleted from both your iCloud Drive and local device storage (On My iPhone). A label under deleted files displays their original location.
Hold the file you’d like to undelete and choose Recover from the menu. Or, select it and choose Recover.
To batch-undelete multiple items, hit the three-dotted icon in the top-right corner and choose Select, then hit the Recover All button at the bottom.
Mac
On the Mac, files deleted from your iCloud Drive are moved to the Trash.
To recover them, click the Trash icon on the right side of the Dock and then pick one or more deleted items, then click the File > Put Back menu.
Doing so will undelete the items, and they’ll reappear in their original locations.
Unfortunately, the Trash on macOS doesn’t display a label to indicate whether the file originally resided in a folder on your Mac, iCloud Drive, or external storage. You can help yourself by switching the Trash window to icon view so you can visually distinguish specific files. Or, select a deleted file and press the Space Bar to preview it with Quick Look to confirm that’s the file you want to recover.
iCloud Drive on the web
On Windows and Android, you must use a web browser to recover recently deleted files from your iCloud Drive, so visit iCloud.com/drive and sign in with your Apple account.
Now select Recently Deleted in the sidebar to browse the recently deleted files, then pick the items to undelete and click Recover.
To recover everything in the Recently Deleted folder at once, click Recover All instead.
Can’t find your file in Recently Deleted or Trash?
You may not be able to recover older files if you’ve set your Mac to automatically empty the Trash. Also, iCloud syncing issues may prevent a file deleted on one device from showing up in the Trash or the Recently Deleted folder on your other devices. Be sure all your devices are connected to the Internet for changes to sync.
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