Recovering Deleted Files from iCloud: A Family Dilemma

Hello, fellow readers! Today, I’m reaching out to share a challenging situation one of my relatives is facing regarding file recovery, and I hope to provide some insights and solutions to others who might find themselves in a similar predicament.

Recently, my brother and sister were unwittingly connected via iCloud, which led to an unfortunate incident. A few days ago, my brother mistakenly deleted a significant number of files belonging to our sister, thinking they were his own. Unfortunately, these files were crucial for her work, and since both devices were linked to the same iCloud account, the deletions affected both parties.

After realizing the gravity of the situation, we explored multiple recovery options. We contacted Apple Support, utilized recovery tools available at iCloud.com, and even checked the “Recently Deleted” folder, to no avail. Our best efforts resulted in two scans using third-party software, namely Disk Drill and Wondershare Recoverit. While these tools helped recover the majority of the essential files, four Pages documents remain elusive. Interestingly, the scans indicate that these files still exist and show a size of approximately 365 KB, yet every attempt to restore them leads to corruption—a frustrating dead end as they show up as zero-byte files.

At this point, we find ourselves questioning whether we’ve reached the limit of what we can do. We’ve even begun sifting through an array of .txt files on her laptop, although it feels like searching for a needle in a haystack. As the one trying to navigate this wild data recovery adventure, I’m left pondering: Is there still a possibility of retrieving those last few files?

If anyone in the community has experience with iCloud file recovery or knows of specialized recovery techniques, your advice would be greatly appreciated. Thanks for taking the time to read this, and I hope to shed light on this issue for others in similar situations.