How to recover deleted Phone videos [iOS & Android]

Quite a few users experienced the deleted videos problem and would like to undo the stupid action. Things happen mostly in this way:

"Recently I went on a trip and captured many short videos with my phone, and I realized there's no enough storage on it, so I delete some of to make more space. A couple of days later I found that I need one of the videos and would like to share it with my friends. Can I restore these deleted videos on my phone? Help!!!"

Deleting the memorable videos accidentally is the bane of video loss on a smartphone, and it's not common to see this in the world of phone memory. But it's an easy fix to recover lost phone videos mostly and put things back the way they once were. The method will depend on which device you deleted the video files from, and there's a slight difference between iPhone and Android phone. We explain now.

Part One: Phone Videos Recovery for iPhone (iOS)

If you've lost a film or movie you downloaded or purchased from iTunes Store, you just go to the store to re-downloaded the movie files and retrieve everything. In this part, we discuss the videos took with the built-in camera and saved in Photos. In fact, recovering the phone videos on an iPhone is relatively simple, and there are a few ways to work out.

Option 1: Getting Back from "Recently Deleted" Folder

For anyone else struggling with this on an iPhone running on iOS 8 or higher, try the Instant Recovery feature in "Recently Deleted" album — a smart album as part of the Photos app, which allows to restore any deleted phone videos files as well as the photos for 30 days since after you deleted them. You can also do so in iCloud Photos on icloud.com provided that you've enabled iCloud Photos Library on the phone, the process is the same in general.

• Open Photos app and tap Albums.
• Go to Recently Deleted, and all the videos you deleted will be in it.
• Tap on Select, then tap to choose the videos and tap Recover. The videos will go back to the Camera Roll.

Doing in this way you are able to bring back the phone videos successfully.

Option 2: Use Recovery Tool to Retrieve Phone Videos

Another method option of restoring deleted phone videos on an iPhone is to use a recovery application, in the cases that the videos in Recently Deleted are subsequently cleared. For the videos you absolutely need to get back, you should consider iOS Data Recovery. It can scan the phone memory to find the deleted videos and recover them quickly. This is almost automatic process.

You can access the phone videos by using these steps:

• Plug iPhone into computer's slot via USB cable. Open up the program and opt to "Recover from iOS Device" mode to recover phone videos.
• Click the Start Scan button to get the program to scan and analyze the device.
• On the preview window, click "Camera Roll" or "App Videos" from the left list, then select the videos you'd like to bring back, and click the Recover button.

Turn to our complete guide to iOS Data Recovery here: how to recover data from iPhone.

Option 3: Recover Phone Videos by Extracting from iPhone backup

If you've performed backup using iCloud or iTunes during the time when the videos you took were on your phone, then a restore of the backup may get the deleted video back to your device. Keep in mind that the files newly added to the iPhone since the date of the backup would be lost.

1. Retrieve from iCloud backup

• Since you've already set up your iPhone, you need to wipe out everything before performing the process. Go to Settings > General > Reset > Erase All Content and Settings.
• Turn on the phone and follow the setup steps until you see the App & Data screen, then choose Restore from iCloud Backup.
• Log into iCloud and select a backup from which you want to restore the phone videos. The iPhone should be in the process of recovering; wait for the process finishes.

2. Retrieving via iTunes backup

• Connect iPhone to computer and launch iTunes.
• Click on the tiny Device icon from top left corner of the window, then Summary on the left list.
• Click Restore Backup button under Backups portion on the right pane, and in the dialog box, choose a backup from the drop-down menu.
• Hit Restore button and wait for it to restore the phone videos.

Part 2: Phone Videos Recovery for Android

When deleting a video file on a phone powered with Android, things can be a little tricky but there's still better chance to retrieve the videos back on the phone.

Option 1: Recovering Deleted Videos from Google Photos

Unless you're using Google photos to sync the videos on your phone before you deleting, they'll stay in the trash for 60 days. This is similar to the Recently Deleted folder on iPhone.

• On the Android phone, open Google Photos app.
• At the upper left of the screen, tap the Menu option, then on Bin (or Trash).
• Tap and hold on any video files you want to restore, and tap Restore at the bottom. The phone videos will be back in the Gallery app on Android.

Option 2: Get an Android Phone Video Recovery Utility

If you've never sync the videos with Google, the videos you deleted will be gone, but they burry deep into the phone memory and are able to be recovered. Android Data Recovery is the certain application that we used in this case — it did its work nicely and efficiently.

• Run the software and choose Android Data Recover tab to proceed.
• Connect the device to computer and enable USB Debugging mode on it.
• Click to tick the "Videos" option for getting the lost phone videos back and click the Next button.
• Click the Advanced Root button to gain full access to the phone.
• From the left list of the window, click "Videos" and then select the videos you're going to retrieve.
• Click the Recover button, and the videos files on the phone should be hopefully restored.

For more details of the guide, see: How to Recover Data on Android phone.