A broken screen is not a disaster yet
You dropped it and immediately realized: the glass is shattered. A familiar story. iPhone 12, 13, 14 Pro — no matter the model, a one-meter drop onto tiles does the same damage. The panic is understandable: your photos, chats, work documents, and contacts are on there, and nowhere else.
The good news is that in most cases, the data survives even after a severe impact. The motherboard and flash storage are separate from the glass, and if the phone is working at all, the chances of saving everything are very high. The main thing is not to panic and avoid making any unnecessary moves.
Why data gets lost — and not always right away
Most of the time, it's not because of the broken screen itself. Problems arise later — when the phone is dropped again, liquid-damaged in an attempt to "clean" it, or disassembled at home with a screwdriver. It happens to us: someone brings in an iPhone 13 with a cracked screen but everything works — and then they immediately tell us that before coming in, they tried to replace the screen themselves following a YouTube video. As a result, a flex cable is torn, and that's when the real difficulties in accessing the data begin.
Another typical story is a dead battery. The screen is broken, Face ID stops working, and the phone doesn't charge well through a damaged port. The customer waits a week, the battery drains completely, and when they bring it in, the data is locked because they can't enter the passcode on the screen. This is a completely different recovery scenario.
What to do right now while the phone is still alive
If the screen shows anything at all and the phone responds to touch — act immediately, don't put it off until tomorrow.
- Plug it in to charge. Even if the port is slightly bent, try carefully. A charged phone gives you room to maneuver.
- Create a backup via iCloud. Go to Settings — your name — iCloud — Backup — "Back Up Now". You need Wi-Fi and free space. If there is no space, buy 50 GB for a month, it's 99 rubles. Don't skimp on it.
- Sync via Finder or iTunes. Connect to a computer with a cable. Mac — Finder, Windows — iTunes. Click "Back Up Now". It's more reliable than the cloud: everything is written locally to your drive.
- Copy photos manually. If the backup doesn't work, at least save the photos. On a computer, the iPhone is visible as a camera, and the DCIM folder can be copied by simply dragging and dropping.
An additional option that few people know about: if the screen responds to touch but there is no image at all, try a Lightning-to-HDMI adapter and an external monitor. Sometimes it works, takes five minutes, and you have nothing to lose.
When the screen doesn't respond at all
This is trickier, but not hopeless. If the phone turns on (you can hear vibration, the indicator light is on) but the screen is dead, connect it to a computer and wait for Finder or iTunes to detect it. If you have trusted this computer before, the backup will be created without entering the passcode on the screen.
If it's not trusted, you'll need to unlock it blindly. Turn it on, swipe up, enter the passcode, and tap "Trust" on the computer prompt. It sounds daunting, but many people succeed on the first or second try if they remember the layout of the screen elements.
When you need a technician
If the phone shows no signs of life at all, is not detected by the computer, or you have already tried everything above, further experiments can only do harm. Disassembling the phone yourself to access the board without experience and tools is a bad idea. It's easy to tear a flex cable or damage connectors, and then data recovery becomes a separate, expensive story.
We often see this picture: the data could have been saved in half an hour, but the customer stalled, the phone died and locked up — and now it requires special equipment, time, and money. Don't delay.
If you couldn't do it yourself, come to iClub.pro at Kommunisticheskaya, 35. Diagnostics are free, we inspect it in front of you and immediately tell you what can actually be done in your specific case.