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There are so many so-called iPhone backup viewers. Each one looks the same by offering similar features and promising to help you easily get things from your iPhone backup on your computer or the Apple iCloud server.

But how can you get out the top best one to view the hidden pictures, contacts, messages and other files on the backup? With so many app reviews crowding on the Internet, it would be so hard to get it out.

In comeware.com, here we’ve reviewed more than 10 top iPhone backup viewing tools. And we picked out some top free ones to help you get the photos, messages, contacts, etc from iTunes backup and iCloud backup. Now let’s have a look at these cost-free iPhone backup browsing tools.

Note: Till now, we didn’t find any apps could access the contents on iCloud backup. Besides, you can directly go to know how I started the app testing if you are interested in.

Top Free iPhone Backup Viewers [2019 Updated]

The test results show there are 4 apps that you can use for free to browse the contents that stored on iPhone backup, including Joyoshare trial version, iMazing free trial, Dr.Fone free trial, iBackup Viewer.

This app list will be updated if there are some big changes, and we’ll remove anyone who charges for backup previewing.

Joyoshare iPhone Data Recovery Trail Version

Joyoshare is one of the excellent free iTunes backup viewers I found that people could use to access the contents and files from iTunes backup. This app runs on Windows and Mac to get all your iPhone backups saved on your computer, and help you preview and extracts the contents on the backup compressed files.

And this could be very helpful if you don’t want to restore using the default method to spread out all files on your iPhone screen.

Supported file types:

Messages, Contacts, Call History, Notes, Calendars, Reminders, Safari, Voicemail, Photos, Voice Memos, App Photos, App Videos, App Document, WhatsApp, Viber, and Kik.

Pros:

• Supports both Windows and Mac computer to get iTunes backup.
• Works well to access in iOS 11 and iOS 12 backups.
• Find the locations of your local iPhone backup files.
• Can preview your personal info, media, docs and SNS data on backups.

Cons:

• Can’t access the iCloud backup.
• It charges for extracting files from backup.

iMazing Trail Version – Free iTunes Backup Browser

For iPhone backup viewing, iMazing does a good job. Just like Joyoshare, iMazing helps you quickly preview photos, messages, contacts, call history and other file types from iPhone backup to your computer desktop or a specific folder.

This app is worth trying since it has stable performance, and it provides you with many useful features to manage contents on your iOS device besides browsing an iPhone backup.  You can go to my collected iPhone transfer software to know more about this app.

Supported file types:

Photos, Videos, Contacts, Messages, Call History, Voicemail, Notes, Voice Memos and other App Data.

Pros:

• 100% free for browsing contents on all iTunes backup.
• Well compatible with the new iOS 12.1.4 backup.
• Supports Windows and Mac system.
• Nice design and lots of useful features.

Cons:

• It’s not free if you want to extract from backup.
• Can’t view iCloud backup contents.

Disclosure: These apps are free to browse and preview contents in iOS backups, but the apps are not free for all their features.

How Did I Test the Apps to View iPhone Backup?

I’ve reviewed some iPhone recovery software before. And I know that most of iPhone recovery apps are able to preview and extract contents from iPhone backup. Therefore I re-tested these apps and added some new ones, such as iMazing and Joyoshare, to have the test.

I’ve made several backups using my new iPhone XS and old iPhone 6 before starting the tests. Installed more than 10 backup extractor tools on a MacBook 2017 and a ThinkPad laptop to get the contents on my iTunes backup and iCloud backup.

And I checked whether the free version of these apps could access the data hidden in the backup files, and what data types it supports to view. There are two kinds of backup files that iPhone users use, the iTunes backup and iCloud backup. I tested the ability of these apps on browsing both of these backup types.

There are plenty of iPhone photos vault apps, including the Private Photo Vault, Secret Calculator, App Locker, and NQ Vault. They are very helpful to protect secret pictures and files using a PIN, a pattern or a Touch ID. However, there is a possibility that people may forget the password to bypass the photo vault apps on your iPhone. And it’s also possible that people may delete photos and videos from the app by accident.

So what if these accidents happen to you, how can you get back the lost or deleted photos from the Photo Vault or Lock Apps on your iPhone?

Here, I’ll tell about how secret apps hide your photos and give some tricks to quickly get back your deleted photos from the iPhone Private Photo Vault or similar apps, as well as some tips to recover your forgotten password.

How the Photo Vault, Secret Calculator or App Locker apps hide your photos on iPhone?

I looked for the answer to this question from some app developers. And I got some feedback saying that the Photo Vault app will create some non-visible file extensions that are only accessible via the app. In fact, they didn’t encrypt the pictures, videos, and files. And they just use the passcode to stop you from accessing the files hidden behind. So some file explorer apps are able to bypass these photo vault or lock apps to get these hidden pictures even if you forgot the passcode.

Surely, even if you deleted the pictures from the app, there are still some potential solutions since you may have saved all app data to a recently iPhone backup.

How to recover accidentally deleted photos from iPhone photo vault app?

As we are known, app data will be saved to an iPhone backup if you’ve ever backed up your iPhone to iCloud or iTunes. And the photos and files you saved to Photo Vault app or secret apps might have been saved to your iPhone backup, so there is a chance you could get back your removed app data from the iPhone backup.

For People Using iCloud

So how to check whether you’ve ever backed up photos on the photo vault app?

It’s easy to get it by going to Settings > Your Profile > iCloud > Manage Storage > Backups > your iPhone name > Check whether you’ve backup data on your Photo Vault app.

If it shows that your deleted photos are saved there, then you can restore iPhone to get back the deleted files. But firstly, make sure that the restore process would get all data from backup to your iPhone and replace everything on your device.

For People Using iTunes

Besides, if you’ve recently created an iTunes backup of your iPhone, you got another chance to restore your deleted photos. And for details on restoring, you can go to https://support.apple.com/kb/HT1766

How to bypass the Photo Vault App to get hidden photos without Password?

Sometimes you may forget the passcode or pattern to unlock the Photo Vault app. In this situation, how can you get the hidden files?

How to recover passcode for iPhone Photos Vault or Lock apps?

Actually, some apps, such as the Private Photo Vault, will require you to set a recovery email address for the accident that you forgot the passcode.  If you’ve ever set the recovery email address, it’s easy to get back the passcode.

How to bypass file vault of lock apps on iPhone?

Surely, if you didn’t set the recovery email, it is still possible that you could use some iPhone file browser apps to get back the hidden files. For example, some iPhone transfer software and some backup extractor apps help get the pictures saved behind those photo vault apps.

iPhone notes app is the default app that people use to record shopping list, to-do list, writing inspiration and so on. And the iOS updates improves the notes app to be better every time and make the noting easy and funny.

However, there are always some users facing update issues and  suddenly losing notes from their iPhone.  If you are one of these guys, this post may be helpful for you to get them back. And let’s check why your notes disappear? And get some free tricks to retrieve your notes back.

Why did my notes on my iPhone disappear?

You can run your Notes app on your iPhone, and your’ll find there are some folders, like iCloud, Gmail and On MY IPHONE. These folders tell that the notes are usually stored on iPhone hardware and cloud storage.

Some people may find Cloud notes missing from while others may find On My iPhone notes disappeared. And now lets check the reasons why these notes disappear.

Reason 1. Forget to turn on Cloud Notes.

For people who like to store notes using cloud storage, they may get all cloud notes disappearing after iOS update since they may easily forget to turn on the cloud service to sync notes back to their device after software update.

Reason 2. iOS Update Errors.

Surely, some errors and bugs may occur during the update. And this may delete your note contents with the pictures and attaches. In this case, the iPhone backup will be the lifesaver to get notes back to iPhone.

Reason 3. Manually Deletion.

The notes may deleted by some people or mistakenly removed by you. If you are luck, you may find these deleted notes on the Recently Deleted Folder.

How to Retrieve Missing Notes from iPhone

Based on the reasons, there are some free tips you can follow to retrieve your missing notes from iPhone.

1. Retrieve disappeared Notes from Cloud

If you have synced notes from iCloud, Gmail or some other cloud storage service to your iPhone, you can get your cloud notes back by turning on notes sync using the accounts.

1. Go to Settings app > Passwords & Accounts.
2. Choose Account and tap to turn on Notes sync.

2. Recover all Notes from iPhone Backup

Think back, have you backed up your iPhone to iTunes or iCloud? If you have done some backups, you have chance to get back all of your disappeared notes from iPhone, cause the backup may contains your lost notes.

Apple posted article about how to restore iPhone from backup. And you can restore your device to get your disappeared notes from the iPhone backup.

Some iPhone backup viewer help you preview notes on iTunes backup and iCloud backup. Thus if you are not sure whether there are the missing notes and attached images stored on backup, you can have a try on the tools.

3. Recover Notes from Recently Deleted

Manually deleted notes will be automatically stored on Recently Deleted folder for 30 days before they are permanently erased from your device. So just check the Recently Deleted folder on your Notes app to restore them back.

4. Find an expert to get back missing notes

If all of these methods can’t solve your problem to get back your important notes, you can Google an iPhone recovery service and call them to recover your missing notes. And here we also listed some iPhone data recovery software that you may like to have a test.