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iCloud photos

Hello. My photos and videos been saved on iCloud. It was around 5000 pieces total. So in last month its were automatically downloaded to my gallery and I deleted half of them. Them when I checked in iCloud the deleted photos disappeared from there. What happened to them and how to return them?

iPhone 12 Pro Max, iOS 15

Posted on Jan 3, 2022 5:35 AM

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Question marked as Top-ranking reply

Posted on Jan 3, 2022 9:38 AM

iCloud Photos is a syncing service. Any photo you delete from a device where iCloud Photos is turned on will also be deleted from iCloud and from any other device connected to iCloud Photos. You can potentially reduce the storage space required on a device by turning on Optimize Storage. See: https://support.apple.com/en-us/HT204264


Apple does not currently offer cloud-only storage for photos. If that is what you want or need, you may want to explore 3rd party options such as Google Photos or Dropbox.


You may be able to recover them from Recently Deleted on the device or on iCloud. See: If you're missing photos or videos in the Photos app - Apple Support

1 reply
Question marked as Top-ranking reply

Jan 3, 2022 9:38 AM in response to Ira888

iCloud Photos is a syncing service. Any photo you delete from a device where iCloud Photos is turned on will also be deleted from iCloud and from any other device connected to iCloud Photos. You can potentially reduce the storage space required on a device by turning on Optimize Storage. See: https://support.apple.com/en-us/HT204264


Apple does not currently offer cloud-only storage for photos. If that is what you want or need, you may want to explore 3rd party options such as Google Photos or Dropbox.


You may be able to recover them from Recently Deleted on the device or on iCloud. See: If you're missing photos or videos in the Photos app - Apple Support

iCloud photos

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