Restore Your iCloud Content With This Step-by-Step Guide

Is anything ever really gone from the Internet? Most of the content you keep in iCloud is still available for 30 days after you delete it. You just need to know where to restore it from.

It doesn’t matter if you’re looking for missing contacts, deleted photos, or absent calendar events; if you saw it in the last month, it’s still on iCloud somewhere. In this post, we’ve explained where to find it.

Related:

• Essential Tips on Using iCloud.com
• How to Free Up iCloud Storage — 5 Essential Tips
• How to Log In to iCloud.com on Your iPhone or iPad
• What is iCloud Drive and How Is It Different to iCloud?

Restore iCloud Drive Documents From Any Device

Apple’s cloud storage service, iCloud Drive, is an excellent place to keep all your documents together. Sync it to a Mac or use it alongside iCloud-compatible apps on your iPhone. You can access all your documents from anywhere with an internet connection.

Anything you delete from iCloud Drive is easy to recover using the Files app, the Mac Trash can, or the iCloud website itself. Follow the instructions below to find out how.

How to restore iCloud Drive documents on a Mac:

1. This only works if you sync your Documents and Desktop folders with iCloud Drive. Otherwise, use the iCloud website instructions below.
2. Click the Trash icon in the bottom-right of the Dock.
3. Select the files or folders you want to restore.
4. Click the Cog icon and select Put Back from the drop-down menu.

How to restore iCloud Drive documents on an iPhone, iPad, or iPod touch:

1. Open the Files app.
2. Tap Browse to return to the Locations screen.
3. Select Recently Deleted from the list of locations.
4. Tap Select and highlight different files to Recover them.
5. If you empty the Trash on your Mac, it also removes files from the Recently Deleted location.

How to restore iCloud Drive documents from the iCloud website:

1. Go to www.iCloud.com and sign in with your Apple ID.
2. Click iCloud Drive to view your files and folders.
3. In the bottom-right corner, click Recently Deleted.
4. Select any of your recently deleted files and click Recover to restore them.
5. Alternatively, click [Your Name] > Advanced Settings in the top-right.
6. Beneath Advanced at the bottom of the screen, click Restore Files.
7. Any files you recently deleted from older software and apps appear in this list, select a file and click Restore to recover it.

Restore Contacts From the iCloud Website

You may not realize it, but iCloud keeps archives of your contacts list dating back for the past 30 days. If you accidentally delete or lose someone’s details, you can restore an archive from the iCloud website.

Unfortunately, this is an all-or-nothing option. When you restore an archive, it replaces all the contacts currently in iCloud, erasing any changes you made since the archive was created.

Before doing so, iCloud creates a new archive with today’s date. That way, you can still revert to your current contacts again if you need to.

How to restore contacts from the iCloud website:

1. Go to www.iCloud.com and sign in with your Apple ID.
2. Click [Your Name] in the top-right corner and select Account Settings.
3. Beneath Advanced at the bottom of the screen, click Restore Contacts.
4. Click Restore next to the date you want to restore your contacts from.

Restore Calendars From the iCloud Website

Restoring calendars works the same as contacts: the archived calendars you restore replace all your existing iCloud calendar events. Again, iCloud creates a new calendar archive first, allowing you to revert to it if you ever need to.

When you restore calendars from iCloud, you lose all the sharing information in them. As a result, you need to invite or be invited to any shared calendars again after restoring the archive.

How to restore calendars from the iCloud website:

1. Go to www.iCloud.com and sign in with your Apple ID.
2. Click [Your Name] in the top-right corner and select Account Settings.
3. Beneath Advanced at the bottom of the screen, click Restore Calendars.
4. Click Restore next to the date you want to restore your calendars from.

Restore Safari Bookmarks From the iCloud Website

Unlike contacts and calendars, it’s possible to restore individual Safari bookmarks you deleted from iCloud in the past 30 days. You can also choose to restore all of them at once.

How to restore bookmarks from the iCloud website:

1. Go to www.iCloud.com and sign in with your Apple ID.
2. Click [Your Name] in the top-right corner and select Account Settings.
3. Beneath Advanced at the bottom of the screen, click Restore Bookmarks.
4. Select a recently deleted Safari bookmark and click Restore to recover it.

Restore Emails From Mail or the iCloud Website

It’s far too easy to delete important emails when sorting your inbox. Luckily, they aren’t gone forever. You can recover recently deleted iCloud emails using the Mail app on your iPhone, iPad, iPod touch, or Mac.

Failing that, you can also restore them using the iCloud website.

How to restore emails from the Mail app:

1. Open Mail on your iPhone, iPad, iPod touch, or Mac.
2. Tap or click the Mailboxes button to see all your mailboxes.
3. Select the Trash mailbox for your iCloud email account.
4. Select a deleted email and use the Move button to restore it to your inbox.

How to restore emails from the iCloud website:

1. Go to www.iCloud.com and sign in with your Apple ID.
2. Click Mail to view your iCloud emails.
3. From the sidebar, select Trash to see your deleted iCloud emails.
4. Select a deleted email and use the Move button to restore it to your inbox.

Restore Photos From the Photos or the iCloud Website

Your iCloud Photos library is stored in the cloud and shared across all your iCloud devices. When you delete a photo from one device, it goes to the Recently Deleted album for 30 days. You can retrieve it using the Photos app or the iCloud website.

How to restore photos from the Photos app:

1. Open Photos on your iPhone, iPad, iPod touch, or Mac.
2. On an iPhone, iPad, or iPod touch, tap the Albums tab and select the Recently Deleted album from the bottom of the page.
3. On a Mac, select Recently Deleted from the sidebar.
4. In the Recently Deleted album, select the photo or photos you want to restore and then click or tap the Recover button.

How to restore photos from the iCloud website:

1. Go to www.iCloud.com and sign in with your Apple ID.
2. Click Photos to view your iCloud Photos library.
3. From the sidebar, select the Recently Deleted album.
4. Select the photo or photos you want to restore and then click Recover.

Restore Notes From the Notes App or the iCloud Website

Your iCloud Notes work just like iCloud Photos. If you delete a note from one device, it moves to the Recently Deleted folder on all your iCloud devices. You can restore deleted notes from within the Notes app or using the iCloud website.

How to restore notes from the Notes app:

1. Open Notes on your iPhone, iPad, iPod touch, or Mac.
2. Tap or click to view your Notes folders.
3. Select the Recently Deleted folder from the bottom of the list.
4. On an iPhone, iPad, or iPod touch, slide across a deleted note and move it to a different folder.
5. On a Mac, click and drag a deleted note to a different folder.

How to restore notes from the iCloud website:

1. Go to www.iCloud.com and sign in with your Apple ID.
2. Click Notes to view your iCloud Notes.
3. From the sidebar, select the Recently Deleted folder.
4. Select a deleted note and click Recover at the top of the screen.

Use a Third-Party App to Restore Deleted Reminders

Unfortunately, there is still one iCloud app that doesn’t let you restore deleted data: Reminders. Despite Apple’s improvements to the Reminders app in iPadOS, iOS 13, and macOS Catalina, you still can’t restore deleted tasks.

If this is important to you, consider using a third-party app instead, like Todoist. Many of them offer more features than Apple Reminders, such as cross-platform support, and you can often view deleted tasks as well.

Dan Helyer( Senior Writer )

Dan is a freelance writer based in South West England.

He spent two years supervising repairs as a Genius Admin for Apple Retail and uses that knowledge to keep our troubleshooting guides up to date.

Long before that, Dan turned to Apple products from a musical background. Having owned iPods for years, he bought a MacBook to learn sound recording and production. It was using those skills that he gained a first-class Bachelor of Science in Sound Technology.