Can you recover deleted photos from a photo vault app without paying?

Why trash recovery matters

A delete is the easiest mistake to make. A thumb slips during a bulk select, or a child taps the wrong button. A trash turns that mistake into a short wait instead of a loss.

Some vault apps charge for the way back. In the 836 App Store reviews we read, 7 users describe paid trash recovery (Keepsafe 6, SPV 1). One Keepsafe user wrote: “Asking money for keeping photo is fine but asking money for not deleting come on !!!”

York Vault has one rule here. Your own items stay yours in every billing state. Viewing, export and restore from Trash are free on every plan. See what stays free for the full list.

How Trash works in York Vault

1. You delete an item or an album. The items go to Trash.
2. They stay there for 30 days. You can pick 7, 30, 60 or 90 days in settings.
3. 3 days before items expire, a banner tells you how many items expire, and when.
4. To get an item back, open Trash, select it, and tap Restore. It goes back to its album.
5. At the end of the wait, York Vault deletes the item for good.

This works the same on iPhone, iPad and Android, and in every library. Each library has its own Trash, so the cover library shows only its own deleted items.

What happens when an item leaves Trash?

Every item in York Vault has its own key. When an item leaves Trash, York Vault destroys that key first. Then it removes the encrypted data from the phone and from your backup. Without the key, nobody can read any encrypted data that may remain, including us.

York Vault does not claim a multi-pass overwrite of your files. The protection comes from the destroyed key, not from writing over the file.

Empty Trash and the space on your phone

Items in Trash still use space, because you can still restore them. Empty Trash deletes them now. The free space on your phone goes up within 1 minute. The storage screen shows how much space Trash uses. Read duplicates and storage to see what else holds space.

Undo right after you add items

Right after you add items from your photo library, York Vault offers Undo. Undo removes the copies that York Vault made a moment ago. It works while the originals are still in your photo library, so you lose nothing. Once you remove the originals, Undo is gone, and Trash is the way back. See how adding and cleanup work.

How Apple Photos and Google Photos compare

Both phones have their own trash for the photo library:

App	How long	Lock	Where we read it
Apple Photos	Recently Deleted keeps items for 30 days.	Face ID or Touch ID	Apple Support
Google Photos	Trash keeps items for 30 days.	No separate lock	Google Photos Help

When you move photos into York Vault and remove the originals, those originals go to that trash. Empty it if you do not want them there. Our guide on Recently Deleted on iPhone shows how.

How other vault apps handle deletes

App	Trash	Where we read it
Keepsafe	“Recovery of deleted items is a premium feature.” Paid list: “Trash Recovery”.	App text and listing
Private Photo Vault	“Trash will automatically be deleted after %ld days”. Recovery: “Upgrade to Premium in order to access recovery functions”	App text
LockMyPix	“Files that you have moved to the Trash will be kept for unlimited time (Premium only).”	LockMyPix docs
Privault	No trash: “Caution: you cannot restore it once deleted.”	App text
Vaultaire	No trash. A delete is final.	App package

We read the app text in each App Store package in September 2026. We checked the listings and docs on 2026-10-02. For a full look at one app, read our Keepsafe alternative page.