Missing iPhone photos

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Level 1

4 points

Missing iPhone photos

Hi, while I was scrolling through my Reddit feed last night, I figured out that many of my photos were missing and this still doesn't make sense to me. The photos missing are not hidden and they are not in the recently deleted folder. I have an iCloud back up, but this only covers photos from this year and the photos missing date back to 2021 and 2022 respectively. I have a feeling that someone must have hacked into my iCloud or my Apple ID and "stole" the photos. I am, however, still surprised that these are not under recently deleted. Is there any way to retrieve these?

[Re-Titled by Moderator]

iPhone 12 Pro, iOS 17

Posted on May 4, 2024 7:05 AM

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Answer 1

markwmsn

Level 6

15,035 points

May 4, 2024 8:48 PM in response to Low1304

If the photos in question are not on your phone and not on iCloud (including not in Recently Deleted), they are gone unless you made your own backup somewhere else (like to a local computer).

I'm trying to figure out how you managed to have "an iCloud back up" that "only covers photos from this year."

Did you mean a literal iCloud backup of your entire iPhone? That would include either every photo on your iPhone or no photo on your iPhone, depending on whether iCloud Photos was active.

If you meant that iCloud Photos was active, that's not a backup but is a cloud library actively synchronized with the iPhone. Deletions to either would be deleted in both locations (all locations if you also had an iPad or Mac attached to the same iCloud Photos library).

When and where did you last see these 2021 and 2022 photos? Recently Deleted only holds items for 30 days (or until you manually delete them again from Recently Deleted).

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