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Nine months photos just disappeared from icloud, gone from all devices. Not deleted by me, not hidden, same icould account all devices. Apple support don't know why and can't rescue them. It is photos from June last year to March this year, so not even resent photos. I thought I could trust iCloud as a safe back-up solution, that I pay for every month. But apparently not. Anyone else with the same experience?
[Re-Titled by Moderator]
Thanks! Of course the easiest explanation is that I accidently deleted my photos and discover that more than 30 days later so there is no trace left what so ever. You may not trust me but, no, I know I didn’t.
I admit that I was stupid enough to believe I could trust iCloud and that photos were safely stored in a cloud storage. This is what I thought I paid extra for. I know Apple do things differently. This is indeed very different from other trusted storages such as Google drive, Onedrive etc.
I guess the learning here is that you should use another cloud solution than iCloud as a backup. No point pay extra for iCloud storage.
Thanks! Of course the easiest explanation is that I accidently deleted my photos and discover that more than 30 days later so there is no trace left what so ever. You may not trust me but, no, I know I didn’t.
I admit that I was stupid enough to believe I could trust iCloud and that photos were safely stored in a cloud storage. This is what I thought I paid extra for. I know Apple do things differently. This is indeed very different from other trusted storages such as Google drive, Onedrive etc.
I guess the learning here is that you should use another cloud solution than iCloud as a backup. No point pay extra for iCloud storage.
Thanks for the advice! I run macOs Catalina 10.15.7. I also have an iPhone 11 Pro with OS 15.6.1. It looks like all photos are remaining in previous months and following months. Not one single photo exist in July for example, or in any of the months between the dates mentioned. Not when looking in Photos on my mac, not on my iPhone and not on iCloud logging in from a browser.
I appreciate your suggestions and considering them I conclude following:
1) I have used 26 out of 200 GB, so I have 176 GB available. I have not received any warnings.
2) No family or friend have access to my iCloud. I guess I would get a warning if someone managed to login from another device?
3) All photos missing were taken with my iPhone, same as the remaining photos in the previous and following months.
4) iCloud photos was enabled both before this happened and after. I'm missing photos taken with my iPhone.
5) I have not changed the Photos library, ever. I have no external drives connected.
6) In photos on my mac I tried both to go to the year and month and I have also tried with click on "All photos" where they all look to be in date order. Going to the actual period there is not a single photo between these two dates. Same if I login to iCloud photos by a web browser. The photos before and after exist but all in the same period are gone. No hidden photos and not in last deleted.
Not sure I dare to say it but maybe iCloud is not perfect, maybe there is a defect in the system? I would love someone to prove me wrong.
It is quite easy to have photos selected that are not visible on screen - for example if you have selected them (deliberately or accidentally) then scrolled to a different part of the library. If you then select on additional image and delete it you will also delete all other images that are already selected.
That is one way it is possible to accidentally delete images.
Some people also make the mistake of deleting items on their phone to create space, not realising that will also delete them from iCloud and all other devices.
I guess you have already checked your deleted items folder?
I know it won't help you, but for the benefit of anyone else reading:
iCloud IS NOT a backup...
The problem with iCloud for photos (and files if you use iCloud drive) is it makes all the libraries across all the devices the same. While it does protect you from a drive failure - it doesn't protect you from accidental deletion. If you delete photos on your phone, they are deleted on your mac, and from iCloud - same if you delete on your mac - they'll be deleted on your phone.
Every few days we get someone here saying "I deleted photos - how can I get them back". If it was more than 30 days ago (or they’ve been manually removed from recently deleted), and there is no other backup, the answer is "you can't"
Always use a proper backup in addition to iCloud.
The only way that Apple would ever delete photos from iCloud Photos would be, if you have been using more cloud storage than you have paid for for several months. Then Apple may delete older photos if you did not fix this after receiving a warning, that you are exceeding the cloud storage.
There are other possible ways that Photos may vanish from your devices:
BTW, which system version is installed on your Mac? Since macOS 14 Mojave we are not seeing all photos in the Library View, unless we are looking at the All Photos album. The months and years are showing only a selection of the photos. And the "Showing" Filter may be suppressing most of your photos.
Just something worth trying.
Follow the sequence of image file names from just before the missing ones. It should be possible to guess the filename of some of the missing images, by following the number sequence.
Try doing a search for a few of these both in photos, and in finder. This will tell you if they are actually still there, but have somehow got out of sequence in the library. Or if they are still somewhere on your mac.
iCloud photos missing on all Apple devices
