Scenario:

A photo I had taken on the iPhone on the 6th June has recently been deleted (by someone other than myself). I would like to recover this photo by attempting to restore from a backup.


As far as I understand, iTunes periodically takes backups of the iPhone as it is synced with my computer. I know that if I restore the phone it will give me the option to restore from last backup, but I believe I will need to restore from an OLDER backup in order to regain this photo (as it may have been deleted several days ago).

Any suggestions? Is this possible?

The photos taken with the phone are stored/embedded in a SQLite format files.

You can still try to extract them with an App able to read/open SQLite database files.

Originally Posted by XianLi

The photos taken with the phone are stored/embedded in a SQLite format files.

You can still try to extract them with an App able to read/open SQLite database files.

Thanks for the prompt reply XianLi

Do you know of a Windows application that can convert these .mdbackup files into SQLite database files? The only script I have come across is the iphone-backup-decoder which currently only supports Mac OS X.

Unfortunately, i don't know any software on Win that will do the same thing.
Try to find someone with a Mac.

While I'm unable to access to a Mac, I've done some further digging...

I've come across plutil for Windows (a Perl script) which allows me to successfully convert .plist files to text or XML. Once I have done this conversion, is it possible to go from here to an SQLite Database file?

I dont think it is, but I would do what Xian Li said and try to get someone who has a Mac to do it for you, maybe even someone from these forums.

Originally Posted by DJ McG

I dont think it is, but I would do what Xian Li said and try to get someone who has a Mac to do it for you, maybe even someone from these forums.

If there are any members (with a Mac) that are kind enough to lend me a helping hand with this exercise, could you please send me a PM or reply to this thread. Thanks in advance

Originally Posted by Kayser Sose

If there are any members (with a Mac) that are kind enough to lend me a helping hand with this exercise, could you please send me a PM or reply to this thread. Thanks in advance

check your pm

volkspost

Originally Posted by volkspost

check your pm

volkspost

Thanks volkspost! PM & email sent...

I was trying to help out Kayser Sose and found a solution that is really working. The Python script throws errors. Erica Sadun again has the tool, it's called mdhelper.

What you need is one of the folders with tons of numbers as the name, it's inside
~/Library/Application Support/MobileSync/Backup/
Place mdhelper in it and run e.g. ./mdhelper -C .jpg
The tool will then extract all Jpegs and place it on the Desktop in a folder called "Recovered iPhone Files".
You cant run the tool just on the .mdbackup files cause they are semi-encrypted. The information how to extract and de-crypt is sitting inside the file Manifest.plist thats in the folder aswell. For navigating the presence of Info.plist is necessary aswell.

[Edited June 30] It is even easier: Just download, unpack and place mdhelper on the desktop. Start application Terminal and change directory with
cd Desktop/
then let mdhelper do its job with
./mdhelper -C .jpg
The programm looks inside ~/Library/Application Support/MobileSync/Backup/ for the backup folders and extracts the files [End Edit June 30]

Wow, again this is a great tool from Erica! I just ran that on my backups, extracted all pics in about a minute.

Forgot the download address:
http://ericasadun.com/ftp/Macintosh/...-universal.zip

One more: If you use ./mdhelper -C .sqlitedb you will get back all your Addressbook and Calendar data, .plist for bookmarks and map bookmarks, .db for sms and notes... ;-)

Hope that helps,
volkspost