How to Recover Deleted Call History on an iPhone: Best Methods

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recover call history from iphone

iPhone call logs are mostly ignored until you really need them… Unfortunately, having to recover deleted phone calls isn’t exactly simple. There’s not much you can do to change how the iPhone manages its logs, and there’s no “recently deleted” folder for calls either. Fortunately, we’ve got options.

Below are 3 different methods to recover deleted call logs on an iPhone… Plus a bonus of 3 ways to see deleted calls on iPhone without recovering data (we’ll talk about this next). Read on.

Method When It’s Most Useful
💻 Data Recovery Software If you don’t have any backups
☁️ iCloud Backup You remember when the call history was present
🎵 iTunes Backup When you backed up calls prior to data loss

Why Does My iPhone Delete Call Logs?

There is no actual configuration for iPhone’s call log feature. By default, it’ll only store the last 100 calls – and anything beyond that gets deleted automatically. In short, there’s no way to increase the number of calls iPhone logs.

It’s also possible that you deleted your call log on another device while both are connected to iCloud. If you have iCloud activated, your call logs are saved to all the devices that are logged in. And if you delete a call log on any of these devices, that change gets reflected everywhere (we’ll cover this below).

How to Find Deleted Phone Calls on iPhone

Because calls are considered private data, there aren’t a lot of ways to view them without having to actually recover deleted call history on the iPhone. Fortunately, we found 3 methods that really work. We highly recommend just recovering your data, but these may be worth a shot. To find deleted phone calls on iPhone, try:

1. Request your data from your cellular carrier.
This is the ONLY way to retrieve your call logs without restoring data, and without downloading a third-party application. If you can verify ownership, you should be successful with this method.

2. Request your data from Apple.
From the Apple website, you can request for a spreadsheet of contact attempts to your Facetime and iMessage. It’ll include details such as contact number, device, time of contact attempt, and more – however, it won’t indicate if the attempt was actually successful and if any communication took place.

To do this, open your browser and log into https://privacy.apple.com/ and log in. Then, click “Request a copy of your data” and proceed with the instructions on the site.

3. Use phone monitoring software.
PhoneSpector is a phone monitoring software that can get the call log from an iPhone, which gets uploaded to your PhoneSpector account (you’ll have to do it manually, though). It can also check deleted calls on iPhone, which is easily its most interesting feature in our case. It’s a paid app, though – so be ready to spend $35.88 on the basic subscription and $83.88 for the pro subscription.

3 Methods to Retrieve Deleted Calls on iPhone

There are 3 reliable ways to retrieve deleted calls on an iPhone. However, you’ll need a computer to actually use the software required. Unfortunately, there is still no reliable way to retrieve deleted call logs from an iPhone without a computer. Since our blog is called Macgasm, we’ll be demonstrating how to do this on a Mac (it’s also way easier since both devices are part of the same ecosystem). Read on.

Method 1: Recover Deleted Calls With Data Recovery Software

The most efficient way to recover deleted calls from an iPhone (without wiping it) is by using data recovery software. On most devices, deleted data remains until it gets overwritten by new data – you just can’t access it. But data recovey tools can.

For this article, we’ll be using Disk Drill. We often feature Disk Drill on our site because we can use it to demonstrate restoring data from smartphones, computers, storage devices, and more with just one app. It also has a high success rate and an easy-to-use interface, making it accessible to most of our readers.

Step 1. Make sure your iPhone is securely connected to your Mac. Then, download and install Disk Drill.

Step 2. Launch Disk Drill by opening Finder > Applications and double-clicking its icon.
DIsk Drill icon in the Finder Applications folder

Step 3. On the left sidebar, select “iPhones & iPads” and select your device from the main window. Then, click “Search for lost data.”
DIsk Drill iPhone and iPad selection screen

Step 4. Wait for Disk Drill to complete its scan, and allow any permissions that Disk Drill asks for.
Disk Drill iPhone scanning screen

Step 5. Disk Drill will display the contents it found on your iPhone. As you can see in the window, you can also use it to retrieve contacts, restore photos, and even recover text messages on your iPhone. For now, click “Call History.”
Disk Drill iPhone contents screen

Step 6. Disk Drill will display all the call logs it found. To the left of the main window, tick the boxes beside each number to select the logs you want to restore. Then, click “Recover.”
Disk Drill list of found call logs

Step 7. On the dialogue box that appears, use the dropdown menu to select a location on your Mac where Disk Drill will save the recovered files. Then, click “OK” to proceed with recovery.
Disk Drill save file dialogue box

Step 8. Once it’s done, click “Show results in Finder” to view your recovered files.

Disk Drill Basic for Mac doesn’t offer free data recovery. But you can preview as many files as you want and use Disk Drill many other data management features for free.

Method 2: Restore iPhone Call History From iCloud

If you have iCloud activated for calls, you should be able to restore that data to your iPhone. However, you can’t restore just your call log – you’ll have to restore everything on your iPhone. That means your existing content will be wiped and replaced by your iCloud data. So backup everything first!

Step 1. On your iPhone, tap on the Settings app.open settings on iphone

Step 2. Navigate to General > Reset > Erase All Content and Settings. Remember that this step is going to wipe ALL the data on your device, so make sure you have a backup.erase all content

Step 3. Wait for your iPhone to reboot and initialize the setup. Go through the on-screen instructions until you get to “Apps & Data.” Then, tap “Restore from iCloud Backup.”apps and data

Step 4. Log into iCloud, then choose a backup (use the dates and sizes as a reference). Sign in with your Apple ID whenever prompted, and make sure to stay connected to Wi-Fi.

Once the process is complete, you should find your call logs in the recents screen of your Phone app.

Method 3: Retrieve Deleted Calls From iTunes/Finder

Another method to restore your call history is to retrieve deleted calls from Finder (macOS Catalina and above) or iTunes . This section assumes that you backed up your iPhone via iTunes or Finder.

However, like the iCloud method, this process will replace all the existing data on your iPhone with the one in your backup… So make sure to save any existing data you don’t want to lose. Then, do the following:

Step 1. Launch Finder on your Mac, then select your iPhone from the left sidebar.
iPhone in the Finder sidebar

Step 2. Navigate to the “General” tab. Then scroll down to the Backups section and click “Restore Backup…”
iPhone management screen in Finder

Step 3. Use the dropdown menu to select a backup and enter your password. Then, click “Restore.” Once your iPhone reboots, you should find your old call logs in your Phone app.
iPhone backups in Finder

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