The Best iPhone Data Recovery Software: An In-Depth Review

Losing important data on your iPhone can be devastating, whether it‘s from accidentally deleting something, a device malfunction, or physical damage. Fortunately, there are quite a few iPhone data recovery apps available that can scan your device or backups and help you recover those precious lost files. But with so many options out there, which ones can you really rely on?

We put ten of the most popular iPhone data recovery apps to the test to determine which are the fastest, most effective, and provide the best overall value. Whether you need to retrieve a few accidentally deleted photos or want to completely restore data from a severely damaged phone, read on to see which apps we recommend.

How We Tested

To really gauge the capability of each app, we deleted a variety of data from an iPhone 7, including a contact, photo, note, voice memo, calendar event, and Pages document. We then used each app to scan the iPhone and attempt to recover this data.

Besides the recovery results, we also evaluated the apps on:

• Ease of use and interface
• Variety of supported data types
• Scan speed
• Sorting and search features
• Additional tools and functionality
• Price and overall value

Here‘s a summary of our top picks, then we‘ll dive into the detailed results.

Best iPhone Data Recovery Apps

Best Overall: Aiseesoft FoneLab

FoneLab struck the best balance of fast scan speeds, recovery effectiveness, ease of use, and features. It supports a very wide range of data types and has useful search and sorting options. The price is reasonable considering everything it offers.

Widest File Support: Tenorshare UltData

If you need to recover data from third-party apps like WhatsApp, Tango, or WeChat, UltData supports the most data types of any tool we tested. The scans are fast, especially if you only select specific data categories. Recovery rates were on par with FoneLab.

Most Comprehensive: Wondershare Dr.Fone

While on the slower side for scan speed, Dr.Fone makes up for it by packing in the most extra features, like phone transfers, screen unlock, and system repair. If you want an all-in-one toolkit, it‘s a great value.

Best Free Option: MiniTool Mobile Recovery

Most of the free versions of these apps are very limited, but MiniTool allows you to recover certain data types without restriction, like notes, voice memos, and app docs. Photos and contacts are limited but it‘s still the most generous free option.

Background: iPhone Data Loss and Recovery

First, a few important things to understand about data loss and recovery on iPhones:

Regular backups are essential. The best protection against data loss is to have a recent backup, either via iTunes or iCloud. Always make sure you‘re running the latest iOS version and have automatic iCloud backups enabled.

Recover from a backup first if you can. If you do lose data and have a backup, try restoring from that before attempting a device recovery scan, as it will be much faster. Most recovery apps support extracting files from iTunes and iCloud backups.

Stop using the phone and act quickly. When you delete a file, it‘s not actually erased right away, but the space is marked as available to be overwritten. The sooner you run a scan the better chance you have of recovering it intact.

There are no guarantees. Even the best apps may not be able to recover every single lost file, especially if the data has been overwritten or the device is severely damaged. Set reasonable expectations.

Professional recovery services are an option. If the data is extremely vital and you can‘t recover it yourself, professional recovery labs with advanced equipment may be able to help, but it can be quite expensive.

Detailed App Comparison

Here are the full results and rankings from our hands-on iPhone recovery app testing.

Recovery Results

After deleting our test files, we scanned the iPhone with each app and attempted to recover them. No app was able to restore everything, but a few stood out:

FoneLab, UltData, Dr.Fone, EaseUS MobiSaver and Disk Drill recovered 3 of the 6 deleted files (contact, note, and photo). The rest only found the contact and note.

Interestingly, only EaseUS could recover the voice memo, and none could retrieve the calendar event or Pages doc, so recovery success may vary depending on file type.

Ease of Use

All of the apps have user-friendly interfaces that walk you through the recovery process. But some make it easier to locate specific files after the scan by offering better sorting and search features.

FoneLab, UltData and Dr.Fone provide the most flexibility, allowing you to filter recoverable files by type, date, or deletion status. You can also search for keywords, which is a huge help. This is an area where the other apps are lacking.

Supported Data Types

While all of the apps support common data like contacts, messages, photos and videos, some go much further. Here‘s a comparison matrix:

UltData and FoneLab are the clear leaders here, supporting 18-20 distinct data categories. Dr.Fone and Stellar also have an extensive selection. If you need to recover data from third-party apps like messengers, go with one of those.

Scan Speed

Doing a full recovery scan can be time consuming, but speeds varied quite a bit between apps. We recorded the time for each app to fully scan our 256GB iPhone 7, selecting all data categories available:

FoneLab and UltData were the speediest by far, at under an hour. Dr.Fone and Stellar took 3-6x longer when scanning all categories.

However, UltData and Dr.Fone let you pick specific data types, which dramatically reduced scan times (under an hour). So you can speed things up if you know exactly what you‘re looking for.

Extra Features

Many of these apps go beyond just data recovery and include other useful tools for managing and repairing your iOS device:

• Dr.Fone: system repair, data eraser, screen unlock, phone transfer
• FoneLab: system repair, data eraser, screen unlock, iTunes repair, iPhone unlock
• UltData: system repair
• PhoneRescue: screen unlock, battery rescuer
• MobiSaver: WhatsApp recovery

Dr.Fone definitely packs in the most extras and is a versatile iOS utility kit. But unless you really need those tools, we prefer FoneLab and UltData for their superior recovery performance.

Price

All of these apps offer a free trial version that will let you see what files are recoverable before you need to pay to actually restore anything. Here‘s what they cost for a single license:

• UltData: $59.95/year or $69.95 lifetime
• Dr.Fone: $69.96/year
• FoneLab: $53.97 (Mac) / $47.97 (Windows)
• EaseUS MobiSaver: $79.95 (Mac) / $59.95 (Windows)
• Disk Drill: $89 (but includes desktop data recovery)
• PhoneRescue: $49.99
• Stellar Recovery: $39.99/year
• MiniTool: free

Pricing is fairly similar for most, though EaseUS and Disk Drill are on the high end. UltData‘s lifetime license is a good value. Stellar offers the cheapest paid app but has a very slow scan speed. MiniTool is totally free but has some recovery limitations.

Recommendations

Based on our testing, here are our picks for the best iPhone data recovery software:

Best all-around for most users: Aiseesoft FoneLab. It offers the best blend of recovery effectiveness, speed, extra features and value.

If you need to recover unusual data types: Tenorshare UltData. It supports 20 different data categories including many third-party apps.

If you want an extensive iOS toolkit: Wondershare Dr.Fone. Includes a full suite of system repair and management utilities on top of data recovery.

Best free option: MiniTool Mobile Recovery. Allows unlimited recovery of notes, voice memos, and app docs (but not photos, contacts, or messages).

Whichever app you choose, always start by attempting to restore a backup if you have one as it will be much faster. Then use these tools as a last resort, and remember to keep your iPhone backed up regularly to minimize data loss in the future.