How to recover deleted call history on iPhone with or without backup

Call logs are used to record incoming, outgoing telephone calls and missed calls, including the name and the phone number of the caller, and the time, date and duration of the call. Accidentally delete a couple of important recent calls in iPhone's call history? No worries, this article will tell you how to recover lost call history on an iPhone in the right way.

People delete call history on their iPhone for various reasons, consciously or unconsciously. Whatever the reasons, call logs are important when you want to check who gave you a phone call and when, or just save the caller's information to your contact list (see how to recover contacts from iPhone). Once these call logs have been wiped out from your iPhone, you may get into trouble and are wondering if you can restore call history on iPhone? Absolutely YES!

When it comes to the ways of getting call history back from iPhone, restoring from a backup probably comes into your mind firstly. It's no denying that iCloud backup is a good way to go as long as you do a regular backup of iPhone before the call logs were lost. But what do you do if there's no iPhone backup from which to restore call history on iPhone?

Thankfully, iTunes (10.14 or earlier, or on a PC)/ Finder backup and iCloud backup are not your last resort, instead, the call history you deleted on iPhone can even be recoverable by yourself with a specialized recovery software application, specifically the iOS Data Recovery.

It works totally well and is good at what it does: retrieving a wide range of lost or deleted iPhone data files, including messages, contacts, notes, call logs, photos, WhatsApp chats, reminder, video, audio and more. An important feature is its deep scan engine, which is capable of analyzing file types in iPhone's internal database and offers a complete preview after scanning.

It also helps to extract from iTunes & iCloud backup files to restore just the records of calls, instead of restoring the entire backup overwriting the stuff currently on the iPhone.

Part 1: Recovering Lost Call History on iPhone Device

Step 1: Connect iPhone to computer

Install the software on your computer you are using for iPhone call logs recovery. Attach the iPhone to your computer, then launch the program. You should see an intuitive user interface containing three recovery modes for getting the deleted calls back as far as possible.

On the left side, choose the "Recover from iOS Device" mode.

Step 2: Scan iPhone database

Go ahead and select Call History data type (and other types if you needed) and then hit the Scan button to run a deep scan around the iPhone memory.

Once the scan is finished, this iPhone call history recovery software will sort all files by types with the amount of each it can be restore, like contacts, messages, call history, photo library, etc.

Step 3: Make a preview for the deleted call history

In this part, select "Call History" category on the left sidebar, and the lost call logs should be listed in details on the right pane. You can view the dialed, missed, or received calls easily.

By default, all the items are marked, therefore, you can deselect the items you aren't looking for and retain the ones you'd like to retrieve.

Step 4: Start recovering call logs on the iPhone's storage

After confirmation, press on the Recover button, this will open up a dialog box that prompts you to select a destination location for the recovered call records.

Hit the Recover button one more time to trigger the process and there are no confusing hoops to jump through - the program will begin restoring the deleted call history on iPhone and keeping in a HTML file that you can print for later use or manually save the phone numbers in Contacts app.

4-minute video tutorial for iPhone call history recovery:

Useful Tutorial: The Easy Way to Move Call Logs from iPhone to Android

Part 2: Recover Call Logs on iPhone from iCloud Backup

Unlike contacts, calendars or some other data, there's no toggle setting for call history within iCloud settings on iPhone. The fact is that as soon as you keep iCloud activated, the logs for all calls will get synced over to iCloud, and can be recovered once you find a call disappeared from Recents list. Here're two options to extract call logs on iPhone from iCloud backup.

Option 1: Restore Call History from iCloud Backup

To restore iCloud backup, perform these steps and therefore you could get back call logs on iPhone:

• Make sure iPhone is connected to a stable Wi-Fi network.
• Open Settings on the iPhone and tap General > Reset> Erase All Content and Settings.
• Once the wiping process is complete, you'll be guided to setting up your iPhone from the scratch. Follow the on-screen steps until you get to the App & Data screen.
• Choose Restore from iCloud Backup, then sign into iCloud account.
• Select a backup you want to use and the restore will starts. Depending on the size of the backup, the process may take a few minutes to finish.
• When it's done, proceed to set up the iPhone and the disappeared call logs in this chosen iCloud backup will automatically save to your iPhone inbox, which is where your incoming, outgoing and missed calls to be found.

Option 2: Use iOS Data Recovery

The application can also download iPhone call logs associated with your iCloud account. The feature unique to previous option is its preview function, which not only allows you to view whether your lost calls are included in this backup, but also let you select individual files to be recovered.

Step 1: Sign in iCloud account. On the startup interface of the utility, choose "Recover from iCloud Backup File", then sign up for your iCloud account.

Step 2: Download an iCloud backup. Once logged in, select an iCloud backup that contains the call logs you've lost, then click the Download button.

Step 3: Choose "Call History" to be downloaded for recovery. When a dialog box appears, check "Call History" option and click the Next button.

Step 4: Select the lost call history. After the scanning and downloading process, you will get an overview window, from which click on "Call History" category on the left list, then find the lost call numbers you need and check them.

Step 5: Restore iPhone call logs from the iCloud backup. Click the Recover button and choose a folder to save the retrieved call records to when prompted. Hit the Recover button again to confirm the recovery.

Part 3: Retrieve Call Logs from iTunes Backup

Some users may have their call records backed up using iTunes or Finder (On a Mac with macOS Catalina 10.15) and stored safely in local computer, in a way that can be restored when losing some calls on iPhone. You can either use Apple's iTunes and the recommended utility to achieve the restoration.

Option 1: Restoring iPhone Call History with iTunes/ Finder

The first option is to use Finder/ iTunes to recovery deleted call history from an iPhone backup. Note that doing this will eventually revert all settings and data to those in the backup you restore from.

Before connecting iPhone to computer, open iTunes (On a Mac with macOS Catalina 10.15, open Finder), then click Edit > Preferences. In the opening window, click on Device tab and disable (uncheck) the option labeled "Prevent iPods, iPhones and iPads from syncing automatically".

• Plug iPhone into computer.
• On the iTunes windows or Finder, click on tiny device icon on the top left.
• In the right pane, click Restore Backup from the Backups section.
• Check the date of each backup from the list and pick the most relevant.
• Click Restore.

Doing so will trigger an automated restoration on iPhone that the calls are being recovered. When it's done, eject your iPhone and the call logs are where they should be on the iPhone.

Option 2: Retrieving Call Logs from iTunes Backup Files

iPhone call history can be also extracted from iTunes backup file individually by using iOS Data Recovery program, avoiding replacing existing stuff on the iPhone.

Step 1: Select an iTunes backup file. On choosing "Recovery from iTunes Backup File" mode on the left side, the software will display all available iTunes backups on the pane. Choose one from where you want to recover deleted or lost call logs on iPhone.

Step 2: Preview and choose call history to be retrieved. Click the Start Scan button to begin the scan for finding the lost call numbers. When you get the result window, click on "Call History" option on the left pane, then check the items you'd like to recover and click Recover button.

Step 3: Choose saving location and start recovery. In the opening dialog window select a location for the resulting records of calls, then hit the Recover button and the calls will soon extracted from iTunes backup and stay in a HTML page in the chosen destination folder.