I am unable to find any photo's on my laptop there are only the ones I took today. I had 4,000 plus photos all backed up now there are none other than the one's from today. What happened? they were all backed up how do I retrieve them?

Hi noemasco,

The best resource for missing photos will be If you're missing photos or videos in the Photos app. Complete the suggestions there to attempt to identify or locate your missing content.

For futher options, you indicate you had these items backed up. Was that to a Time Machine backup as described at Back up your Mac with Time Machine or something else? Check that backup location for the items you're seeking as well.

If you need to backup data stored in iCloud in the future, then Archive or make copies of the information you store in iCloud covers steps and options for each data type so you may keep multiple copies in different locations for safeguarding and security.

Regards.