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How well are photos deleted on iPhone 6S with "erase & reset?

Turnpike

Turnpike

macrumors 6502a
Original poster
Oct 2, 2011
578
322
New York City!
I'm selling an iPhone 6 plus, just exactly how unrecoverable is the data I erased from the phone? I erased and reset it, deleted and signed out of iCloud, removed the SIM card, and updated it to the latest IOS 9.1 or whatever the latest is... is there any way that the buyer with some software or app can recover my pictures or videos...? or even some of them? With software, or some other method...? How bullet proof is the factory "erase & reset" function, given that it's some version of a small SSD in these phones...? I was always under the impression that SSD's aren't as permanently "eraseable" as regular hard drives...
 
In my experience once pics/videos have been permanently deleted, they are gone. No need to worry.
 
I wouldn't worry about it if I've erased the phone but if you're really that paranoid about your files being retrieved by a potential buyer than you probably shouldn't be selling your phone at all.
 
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Are you a celebrity who took nudie pics?

In all reality, the answer is pretty damn nrecoverable. These aren't hard disks that leave physical traces of data. Could it be recovered? Maybe. It's more likely that you win the lottery than whoever you sell it to deciding to try and recover old data in the off chance they MIGHT fand something awesome.
 
On an earlier version of the iPhone before people said the data was unrecoverable I did fill the space with music from iTunes over and over again until I felt it was erased well enough. Don't know if it made a difference but you could try that. I was simply trying to write over all the info. On subsequent phones I have not done that.
 
I know for a fact that data are harder to recover from iPhone than other storage media.

If the other party is well equipped and wants your data bad enough they can probably recover some sfuff
 
Last edited:
The data is recoverable but most would not know how. If it is very important to you that the picture(s) are never recovered...even 10 years later. Destroy the phone by melting it with a blow torch.
 
I erased and reset the phone, then filled it up with purchased iTunes movies until the HD was full, then erased it again. Would that make it permanently unrecoverable? or is some of it still out there?
 
Turnpike said:
I erased and reset the phone, then filled it up with purchased iTunes movies until the HD was full, then erased it again. Would that make it permanently unrecoverable? or is some of it still out there?
Click to expand...

Download a free recovery tool and check it yourself.

Let us know, I've always been curious to see how those tools work. I would think in theory the only thing you should be able to recover is one of those movies...which is unlikely due to their size.
 
First, as to what "the OP has on his phone..." it's not what's on this phone.....it's what I plan to put on the NEXT phone... ;) These phones take amazing quality video...

I'm going to try the suggestions on here, and share them for others. Can anyone point me to the BEST recovery tool? Even that costs money? I will try to see what it recovers, and then after overwriting it a few times, it's pretty much the only way to get an accurate and current idea what is still there and what isn't. My concern is someone ELSE buying a premium recovery software and just running it on anything they happen to buy. I kept a lot of work (proprietary info) on my phone, and it's not worth the $$value of the phone to chance the data, and the phone is too expensive to just keep in a drawer... so I'm going to put this to rest myself. I run 2-4 phones with my work info (between myself and people who work for me) and the peace of mind has a considerable value to me.

Any suggestions on the BEST recovery software out there? I don't mind spending $$. And like I said, I'll share the results here. Thanks!
 
IIRC, iOS encrypts every file on the phone and by doing a "erase all contents and settings" the decryption key is wiped which basically renders any leftovers useless. Also part of the erase process requires the storage to be formatted (almost 100% positive it is a secure erase aka writes all zeros to the disk, not sure about the iTunes restore though).

Some good recovery tools I've heard of are FoneLab and MobiSaver. The MobiSaver is made by a reputable data recovery/backup company whereas I've never heard of Aiseesoft who makes FoneLab. You can try them but I doubt they'll turn up anything.
 
lamborghini392 said:
IIRC, iOS encrypts every file on the phone and by doing a "erase all contents and settings" the decryption key is wiped which basically renders any leftovers useless. Also part of the erase process requires the storage to be formatted (almost 100% positive it is a secure erase aka writes all zeros to the disk, not sure about the iTunes restore though).

Some good recovery tools I've heard of are FoneLab and MobiSaver. The MobiSaver is made by a reputable data recovery/backup company whereas I've never heard of Aiseesoft who makes FoneLab. You can try them but I doubt they'll turn up anything.
Click to expand...

You're right
Page 10
https://www.apple.com/business/docs/iOS_Security_Guide.pdf

It should be technically infeasible since they use AES-256?
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So don't worry too much!
 
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