How to recover deleted photos in Vely on iPhone

To recover deleted private photos in Vely on your iPhone, open Home, choose Recently Deleted, tap Select, choose the photos, then tap Recover. This guide covers items deleted inside Vely; begin by checking where the missing photo was last stored.

Check where the photo went missing

Before changing anything, identify the action you took. Did you delete a photo while browsing Vely, remove an album, or choose to delete the original after importing it? Those are different situations, even when they involve the same picture.

If you deleted the photo inside Vely, start with Vely's Recently Deleted. If you removed an original from Photos after an import, first look for the imported photo in Vely. The guide to storing private photos on iPhone explains the import process and the choice about originals.

For example, imagine you imported three holiday photos and then chose Delete Originals. Begin by opening those three items in Vely. That is a different check from looking for a photo you later selected and deleted while browsing your vault. Keeping the two actions separate helps you look in the right place.

If you cannot open Vely at all, the steps below cannot begin yet. Use the guide to Vely's locking and unlock options for that task. Keep the missing-file question separate from the question of opening the app: seeing an unlock screen tells you nothing about whether a particular photo is in Recently Deleted.

Find Recently Deleted in Vely

Open your vault and return to Home. Look for Recently Deleted. The Home entry appears while that list contains items, including when you have deleted everything from the main view.

Open the entry and look through the list. Each item includes a days-left label. Names, previews and the time remaining can help you identify what you meant to keep. If several files have similar names, open the relevant item to inspect it before making your selection.

Vely's approved explanation is:

Items stay here for 30 days, then are deleted for good.

Use the days-left information shown for the item you are checking. A photo you deleted earlier may have less time left than a photo you deleted today. Reviewing each entry is more useful than assuming every item in the list has the same deadline.

If the Home entry is absent, return to the question of where the photo was last stored. Check the relevant album and the rest of your vault before drawing a conclusion. An absent entry is a reason to check the other possibilities, rather than a reason to reinstall the app.

Select the photos and tap Recover

For one or several photos, use the selection controls in Recently Deleted:

1. Tap Select at the top of the list.
2. Tap each photo or video you want to keep.
3. Check the selected items before continuing.
4. Tap Recover in the bottom action bar.

For a single item, its context menu also includes Recover. Choose the action labelled Recover rather than Delete. When several similar pictures are involved, recovering a small, checked selection makes it easier to verify the result afterwards.

Return to your usual browsing view and open the photos you selected. If an album you expected to see is no longer there, check the top level of your vault as well. Review the actual photo or video, rather than relying only on a filename or thumbnail.

If you selected a group, compare the result with the selection you intended. For instance, if you wanted four pictures from an event, open all four. Then return to Recently Deleted and check whether there are other items from that event that you also meant to keep.

You can use Select All when you want every listed item, but read through the list first. A mixed list can include photos, videos and notes from different tasks. Selecting only what you recognise is often easier to review than acting on the whole list at once.

If you deleted an album

Think back to the choice you made when removing the album. Vely's album confirmation uses this approved wording:

Keep its contents to move them out of the album. Deleted items stay in Recently Deleted for 30 days, then are deleted for good.

The two choices are Delete Album, Keep Contents and Delete Album and Contents. If you kept the contents, look through the rest of your vault for the photos before checking Recently Deleted. The album's disappearance and a photo's disappearance are separate things to investigate.

If you chose to delete the contents, follow the Recently Deleted steps above. Once you have checked the photos, decide how you want to organise them. The storage guide's album section covers that separate task.

Avoid reorganising a large collection while you are still trying to identify what is missing. First make a small list of the pictures you expected to find, locate them, and open them. Sorting can wait until you have finished that check.

Understand the limits before trying other fixes

If a photo is missing from Recently Deleted, review Vely's full approved deletion explanation:

It stays in Recently Deleted for 30 days. After that, or when you delete it there, Vely removes the file and its key from this iPhone. It stays in your iCloud backup until Vely replaces the backups that contain it, which takes up to two more backups. Copies you exported or shared earlier aren't affected.

That explanation is also available on the security page. Read it before treating an older backup as the next troubleshooting step. Record what you know about the photo, the deletion and any backup dates, so you can describe the situation accurately if you ask for help.

A recovery phrase answers a different question. The approved phrase-screen copy says:

Your recovery phrase restores access to your encrypted data. It is not a backup of your files.

If you are looking for information about an existing backup, use the Vely backup guide. If you are changing phones, use the moving-to-a-new-iPhone checklist. Both tasks need their own checks; they should not be mixed into a quick attempt to recover one deleted photo.

Keep your recovery phrase somewhere safe and offline. If you contact support, describe which screen you can reach and which action you took. Leave the phrase, your pattern and personal photo contents out of the message. A useful description can be as simple as: “I deleted a photo inside Vely, opened Recently Deleted, and could not find that item.”

Check the result before your next cleanup

Once you have found the photos you wanted, open each one and review any videos as well. Check that you have the intended pictures, especially when several images show nearly the same scene. A familiar thumbnail can make it easy to overlook a different crop or another moment from the same event.

For your next tidy-up, separate the tasks. First choose what belongs in each album. Then review individual items you intend to delete. Finally, look over any selection before using its action bar. Taking those steps one at a time makes it easier to remember which choice affected an album and which affected its contents.

If you regularly import photos in batches, check the imported items before responding to the prompt about originals. The storage guide explains that decision in context. Keeping the import task separate from later album cleanup gives you a clearer record of what you did if a picture seems to be missing afterwards.

Vely is Coming soon to the App Store. Explore the photo guides for the other steps in organising your vault, and use the approved protection and recovery information when deciding how to handle personal files.