Alternatives to iCloud storage: Missing Years of Media From iCloud

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Level 1

50 points

Alternatives to iCloud storage: Missing Years of Media From iCloud

This isn’t necessarily iPhone related but I could not find the proper forum to post it.

I noticed today that all the media I had stored on iCloud since before August of 2017 has completely vanished from my iCloud. I have worked with Apple technical support and we did some troubleshooting and in the end it turned out the data was nowhere to be recovered. I know that I would not have accidentally deleted years of media from Photos.

Apple suggested I use some sort of physical data storage to back up my media. I am also worried about other data I am relying on iCloud for storage. I am considering third party cloud storage services and I do realize nothing in the digital world is guaranteed to be reliable. I want to know if others have had similar experiences and what measures they have taken to either double-store their media on cloud and or use external physical storage media that can also be unreliable.

Thanks.

iPhone 12 Pro Max

Posted on Jul 2, 2024 6:56 PM

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Answer 1

muguy

Level 10

91,118 points

Jul 2, 2024 7:03 PM in response to Farzad_K

iCloud is not a backup but a synchronization service. You should be backing up your most precious data outside of iCloud. The optimal standard is 3 copies made 2 ways with 1 kept offsite. Files in iCloud storage are only removed if you remove them.

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Answer 2

TheLittles

Level 10

202,675 points

Jul 2, 2024 8:07 PM in response to Farzad_K

Farzad_K Said:

"Alternatives to iCloud storage: Missing Years of Media From iCloud: [...]I noticed today that all the media I had stored on iCloud since before August of 2017 has completely vanished from my iCloud. I have worked with Apple technical support and we did some troubleshooting and in the end it turned out the data was nowhere to be recovered. I know that I would not have accidentally deleted years of media from Photos.[...]"

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Backing Up iCloud Drive and Searching Through it:

One thought would be to download all of iCloud to an external drive. Once downloaded, verify your can access the data. Once verified, trash what is in iCloud. As for seeing through the download, do so in Finder on a Mac. You would download it to an external drive, and then open the drive in Finder. Search through it using the search bar on the top-right corner of the Finder window. Use my user tip: Getting a Quick and Direct "iCloud Drive-to-External Hard Drive" Download - User Tip

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Answer 3

Farzad_K Author

Level 1

50 points

Jul 2, 2024 7:19 PM in response to muguy

Yes, it isn’t a storage/backup service - a lesson that I have learned the hard way. And maybe Apple had warned about it too, without me realizing it.

In case of this incident, since I know that I have not deleted the content, and since I have ample rented storage, data should have stayed there for synchronization or otherwise.

Yes, precious data should not be trusted with iCloud.

thanks for the advice.

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