How to recover disappeared Photos on my iPhone?

Recovered: I installed Apple devices and iExplorer on my PC. Took a backup of my phone. Used iExplorer to open the backup and was able to restore the photos and videos using the free version. They still don’t show up on the phone.

I know this sounds simplistic and maybe everyone else's situation is different, but I just got the 20,000+ photos from 2-5 years ago that went missing returned back on my phone (they were still stored online in the cloud but not accessible on my phone until a few days ago)... I just went to profile settings and realized my device backups was toggled OFF (for whatever reason), so I toggled it ON: then it started Syncing again until I had all 20,000+ missing pics back on my phone again.

I pay $9.99 for 2 Terabytes of storage monthly as well.

I sincerely hope its this easy for the rest if you to fix. Just check all your icloud settings. Also see if its on "storage optimization" versus "keep originals" setting too. I toggled it back to "keep originals" which may have helped jumpstart it back to life - probably after trying to fidget with settings to try bringing my photos back onto my phone ...

Additionally I do have Google photos app that are all intact from 2009. Cheers for the rest of you!

I lost 90% of my thousands of photos, but was able to recover them. I realized my iCloud Photos toggle had gone to off. Go to Settings then Photos and toggle on. It took about a week for the photos to all load.

I have spoken to Apple support and they have been able to restore my photos remotely. As I acted quickly (within 30 days) this was possible. They were very helpful and it was quite a quick fix. Hope this helps anyone else with similar issues.

I had this happen to me just yesterday. I'd been checking photos on my phone on Sunday as I needed to send someone a video, only to find all photos except for 2024 on my phone. I'd lost everything including the last photos I took with my mum before she passed.

After finding this thread doing a google search, I did what a couple of people recommended and called Apple. The tech guy I spoke to was able to restore all my photos.

the key is you have to call within 30 days of noticing your photos missing.

Hi everyone I am writing this in hopes of helping someone else. I panicked earlier because I went to go find a photo from 2021 to see that the furthest back my photos went was October 2023.

here’s what I did, I upgraded to iCloud+ for 9.99/month, opened up safari, logged into “iCloud Photos” using my Apple ID password to see that all of my 41,804 photos were indeed in my iCloud on safari browser in full resolution. Not sure why 75% of them completely disappeared off my phone??? Like Tf???

I still don’t have those pictures back on my actual iPhone photos app BUT at least I know where to find them now.

Anyway, I really hope this helps someone.

The same thing happened to me. I resolved by going to photos in Settings. There I saw that my syncing to my phone had been toggled off. There were only 2,000 photos on my phone but 11,000 on iCloud, so now it has begun the syncing back to my phone. Hope that works for you too

Phone apple support they can recover the photos if less than 30 days since they went missing.

First off, iCloud back ups do not contain your photos; the photos are synced through your iCloud account to all your devices that have it enabled. The iCloud back up is more of the settings and other things that make your phone yours, background display, settings, ringtones, wifi networks... The photos part of iCloud is not a back up service, it is a synching service. Photos stored in the cloud are there for the purpose of syncing, not making a back up. What does iCloud back up? - Apple Support this article explains it in great detail. The only time the back up would contain your photos would be if you do not have iCloud Photos enabled. Then and only then, would those photos be stored in the back up. Archive or make copies of the information you store in iCloud - Apple Support discusses how to make archived back ups of your photos. I'm sorry for your data loss; by using the articles above I hope you can understand the different things the back up contains and how to make a safe back ups of information that you use with your Apple devices.

If these disappeared within the last 30 days, they will be in the "recently deleted" folder in Apple Photos or on icloud.com. If past 30 days, you are out of luck.

Icloud storage is not a backup. Rather, it is a "transfer station." If you use Time Machine, you can go copy the Photos Library from that and start the arduous process of bringing in your photos and de-duping them using a third-party app, such as Duplicate Photos Fixer Pro or Duplicate Photos Finder, to mention two. Both of those work well.

Apple has a serious issue with Photos with regard to deleting photos. I have been on calls with Apple technicians at least six times over the past two years and never has one said that they knew there was an issue. I find that fascinating, as I've noticed this for the past decade; as well, the community boards, like this one, are full with experiences like yours. I posted something like this two weeks ago and Apple didn't allow it to be posted. I didn't know Elon Musk was now running the company.

Make sure you make backups of your data. Icloud is not a backup. Time Machine is. Also, use the 3-2-1 rule: Have three backups on two different types of media (e.g., cloud; external hard drive) and at least one off site.

If it's happened to you, it is likely too late. You 30 days once they have disappeared, and they probably disappeared a long time ago. If not, go online and in the Photos trash and bring them back from the dead.

If they are gone for good, hopefully you have a backup somewhere and you can begin the arduous process of bringing in your photos and then de-duping them. It took me several days to do this and, hopefully, I had backups from years ago on a drive.

I'm glad that worked for you, but it isn't a solution. iCloud is not a recovery service; it is a transfer portal so you can retrieve files and information to your iPhone, iPad, and PC. That's all it does. If you are moving photos and you do not see them on your device, you have 30 days to get them out of the trash can on iCloud. After 30 days, they are gone forever. That's the ONLY way it works. They do not stay up on iCloud and not show up on your devices. The only choice you have is to either have the full files downloaded or simply the thumbnail with full version on iCloud. But once they go missing, you have 30 days to retrieve. The problem for most people is once they realize they are missing photos the 30 days has long passed.

This is a significant fault on Apple developers and every time I've inquired with Apple they do say it isn't an issue from their end. Well, it is.

Always follow the 3 2 1 rule. Keep copies of important files, including Photos, on three different storage devices; on two different types of media (e.g., online backup and hard drive); and at least one offsite. BUT REMEMBER: iCloud is not a backup service; it is only a transfer service. Time Machine is a backup service where your info is backed up on a separate hard drive.

This is going to sound weird but I used Amazon Photos and they found the bulk of my pictures. I have extra storage from iPhone that I pay for monthly but I can’t find them there. I have extra Google storage and I can’t find them there. I get Amazon photo as I have an Alexa Show 21 and there they are. Most of them I can’t find see online but even more show up on my Alexa device.

I would like to cancel the extra storage but I’m not sure how Amazon found them.

OK. So did you back-up your old phone's images and, if so, did you check they were on iCloud at that point? Did you delete the images from your old phone before you sold/destroyed it? If so, you might have deleted the corresponding iCloud images. Even so, you should still see them in the deleted items folder for up to 30 days ...