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All my iCloud photos disappeared

I used iPhones in the past and backed up all my pictures on iCloud. Sometime in 2014, I stopped using Apple products and switched to Samsung.

I recently bought an iPhone and signed in using the same account (albeit, I changed the e-mail address associated with the account but it is the same account nonetheless, all my contacts, reminders, music, movies, t.v. shows are still there).

I signed on to my iCloud using my new phone but I could not see any of my old photos. So I signed on to my iCloud account using my laptop but when I clicked on Photos there was nothing there.

Can anyone help me? I have about 5 years worth of memories there.

Posted on Jun 5, 2019 6:38 PM

Top-ranking reply

rcosta887

Level 4

3,604 points

Posted on Jun 5, 2019 6:56 PM

So iCloud Photo Library, the ability to store and sync photos directly onto your iCloud storage only came out at the end of 2014. Based on you going to www.icloud.com on your laptop, and you being sure that you are in fact using the same account, supports the idea that you never actually used that then-brand new, or not-yet-released iCloud Photo Library when you previously had an iPhone sometime in 2014.

What's more likely, and hopefully this is the case, is that you had an iCloud Backup of your old iPhone as that definitely was standard when you last had an iPhone. You can check to see if you had an iCloud backup as I think that is probably what actually took place back then by going to Go to Settings > [your name] > iCloud > Manage Storage > Backups on your new iPhone:

Restore your iPhone, iPad, or iPod touch from a backup - Apple Support

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All my iCloud photos disappeared

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