2 Ways to Recover iPhone Data on Mac. You can recover lost or missing iPhone data either from iTunes/iCloud backup or without backup using 2 different methods.Directly Recover Data without Backup: Connect your iPhone to PC and then recover lost or deleted files directly from iPhone. No need to have iPhone backup. Recover Data from iTunes Backup File: Recover iPhone data by extracting iTunes backup file. No need to connect iPhone to Mac. It's especially helpful when your iPhone is lost.