Recovering iPhone Data

[dcr+]

Hello. Pretty sure the answer is going to be no, but I am going to cross my fingers and hope anyway.

My iPhone 8 had a problem and would not get past the Apple logo, failed recovery and, through an apparent slip-up, I got it to do a factory refresh. So, all data gone.

No iCloud backup, but I have an older backup on a Mac mini that was running Sierra. But, the iPhone was running iOS 13 and now has iOS 16. And via another screwup on my part where I thought I was just updating iTunes to a newer version that could connect to the iPhone, the Mac wound up "upgraded" to High Sierra which I really did not want as I was keeping that machine on Sierra because I have apps on there that won't run on anything newer.

Anyway, after the "upgrade", the iPhone still will not connect to the Mac. So, can't use that backup.

I have another Mac with Monterey that the iPhone will connect to. And I have an older backup on that Mac too. But when I try to restore, it fails because it says the iPhone doesn't have enough space.

On the upside, before the iPhone went down, I had transferred my photos into Photos, so all my photos are still available. So yay for that at least.

Still, there are some apps, text messages and voicemails I would like to recover if at all possible. I'm guessing there is a slim chance of getting the stuff from the old backup and no chance of recovering anything newer than the backup.

In my desperation, I already fell for one of those scam recovery software outfits that make all sorts of promises but the software does nothing but waste your time pretending to do something.

So, anyway, do I have any options? If I get a new iPhone, is there any chance of getting the old backup restored to the new phone that would at least recover some stuff? Or, is there any legit software that can recover data from either the iPhone or the backup?

Thanks!

 

[dcr+]

Okay, so I did more digging. According to some posts and articles I found across the Internet, *all* iPhone/iOS recovery software is a scam. I found that hard to believe. And I kept digging.

As I mentioned, I did fall for one scam. I was desperate and also in a hurry so I didn't do a deep dive like I should have. I did a quick search online and then checked for reviews on what I thought were reasonably trustworthy sites and, well, apparently not. The software did absolutely nothing. I spent over an hour on it as it "recovered" the data to my iPhone only for it to do nothing at the end and the iPhone was in the exact same condition as when I started.

And there are a number of similar scammy sites and it was difficult to find if any might be legit. It's not a big secret but search engines lie or are easily manipulated. Either way, be careful. I will have to watch my credit card account carefully over the next while in case the scammy site "leaks" or otherwise shares my credit card info.

I did find some software that was apparently reputable by checking articles on sites claiming to review them. One site I recognized and they go way back to when they had a print magazine, so I figured/hoped they might still be trustworthy. I also checked a couple other sites.

So, I tried several different apps which had free trials. The first app, which was one of two that got good reviews from the (hopefully!) respectable source, was able to recover my voicemails direct from the iPhone. It recovered twice as many as I thought I had so whether any are duplicates or if they are all unique, they are recovered. And the one in particular I was hoping to recover was there. I think the software would have also recovered a good chunk of my photos. As I already had those all saved, I needn't need to worry about that.

On that one, in order to recover anything, I had to pay. Which was okay because it did actually work. Whew.

It was not able to recover any of the text messages from the iPhone. It was able to extract them from the old backup I had.

I tried four or five other apps. A couple let me recover data without paying anything. One was able to recover the voicemails direct from the iPhone. I think it would have also recovered photos and other stuff.

None of the software I tried was able to recover any text messages from the iPhone. The app I paid for has been able to recover text messages from backups, so I recovered some. I've lost about 18 months of text messages, I think. Whether any of the apps would have been able to recover the text messages had the iPhone not gone through a factory reset, I do not know. Wish I would have found the one I paid for today yesterday instead of the scammy one.

I have a newer backup that apparently is not recognized as a backup. It's still over a year old but would get me some more messages back if I could get it to work. I'm trying something but I'm not entirely hopeful. I will know in about an hour, I guess.

Also, none of the software I tried was able to recover any apps I had installed. That's a bit of a problem as I don't recall all the apps I had on there.

Anyway, the bottom line is that, yes, there is legit software that can recover data from your iPhone and/or iPhone backup. There are also a lot of scammy software that claims the same and actually has good reviews until you dig deeper. So, perhaps the best thing is to (a) backup regularly of course (in my case, I tried but the backup failed to complete multiple times which should have been a stronger hint to do something about it sooner but there aren't enough hours in the day, you know?) and (b) research recovery software before you need it (and hopefully won't need it) so you don't get scammed when you're desperate and not thinking at 100%.

Also, I'm not mentioning the software because, being a new user here, it may look like I've started this thread just to promote something, which I haven't but you have no way of knowing that. So, I'll just say that there is legit software and it's not hard to find, but you have to be careful because the scammy software is easy to find.