How to recover shared Photos album in iPhone?

How to recover shared album in iPhone


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iPhone XS, iOS 17

Posted on Aug 16, 2024 10:12 PM

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Question marked as Top-ranking reply

Posted on Aug 16, 2024 11:56 PM

Your list would work for standard albums, but sadly none of this will apply to a Shared Album. The Shared Albums are neither a part of the Photos Library nor a part of the iCloud Photos Library. Shared Albums are stored in a separate part of iCloud. Photos we delete from a Shared Album are not saved in recently Deleted and they are not included in the backups of an iPhone.

On a Mac they may be included in a Time Machine backup, if the backup is including the full Photos Library.



@ tharidu97: When and how did the Shared albums get lost? Are you the owner of the Shared album? Did you delete items from the Shared album? Or did you install an update or restore your your iPhone?


  • When you share photos to a shared album, a copy of the photos will be shared. The originals should still be in your All Photos album, unless you deleted them there after sharing them, what you never should do. Try to recover the missing photos from your All Photos.
  • If the Shared albums vanished after the Shared Albums got disabled in the Settings > AppleID > iCloud Photos, you have to enable the Shared Albums again in the Settings. Then the Shared albums will come back, but it may take several days. Turning Shared Albums off will reset them to the state they are in iCloud. So only the photos will be recovered from iCloud, that are still in iCloud. Photos that have been in the album, but have been deleted by the owner of the album or the person who shared them, will not come back, because they are no longer in iCloud. An iPhone can keep photos from a Shared album in its cache, even if the photos are no longer in iCloud, so we may still be seeing photos on our iPhone, after they have been deleted in iCloud. But these photo will be lost, when we toggle the Shared albums off and on again. It is essential to download and save all photos from a Shared album somewhere else, before we install an update, restore the iPhone from a backup, or turn the Shared albums off and on again, because this will reset the Shared albums to the current state in iCloud.




3 replies
Question marked as Top-ranking reply

Aug 16, 2024 11:56 PM in response to TheLittles

Your list would work for standard albums, but sadly none of this will apply to a Shared Album. The Shared Albums are neither a part of the Photos Library nor a part of the iCloud Photos Library. Shared Albums are stored in a separate part of iCloud. Photos we delete from a Shared Album are not saved in recently Deleted and they are not included in the backups of an iPhone.

On a Mac they may be included in a Time Machine backup, if the backup is including the full Photos Library.



@ tharidu97: When and how did the Shared albums get lost? Are you the owner of the Shared album? Did you delete items from the Shared album? Or did you install an update or restore your your iPhone?


  • When you share photos to a shared album, a copy of the photos will be shared. The originals should still be in your All Photos album, unless you deleted them there after sharing them, what you never should do. Try to recover the missing photos from your All Photos.
  • If the Shared albums vanished after the Shared Albums got disabled in the Settings > AppleID > iCloud Photos, you have to enable the Shared Albums again in the Settings. Then the Shared albums will come back, but it may take several days. Turning Shared Albums off will reset them to the state they are in iCloud. So only the photos will be recovered from iCloud, that are still in iCloud. Photos that have been in the album, but have been deleted by the owner of the album or the person who shared them, will not come back, because they are no longer in iCloud. An iPhone can keep photos from a Shared album in its cache, even if the photos are no longer in iCloud, so we may still be seeing photos on our iPhone, after they have been deleted in iCloud. But these photo will be lost, when we toggle the Shared albums off and on again. It is essential to download and save all photos from a Shared album somewhere else, before we install an update, restore the iPhone from a backup, or turn the Shared albums off and on again, because this will reset the Shared albums to the current state in iCloud.




Aug 16, 2024 10:34 PM in response to tharidu97

tharidu97 Said:

"how to recover shared album: How to recover shared album in iPhone"

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Recovering Deleted Photos Album:

Loss of data is something you would have agreed to upon opening an Apple Account. So, if the following does not work, then they are gone. That's just the way it is :(


Five Tactics to Try:

A. Start here: If you're Missing Photos or Videos in the Photos app - Apple Support


B. Check Recently Deleted:

For iOS16 and later, you can check the Recently Deleted option on your iPhone.


C. Check iCloud, Directly:

For Photos: Go here, and see if they reside in iCloudhttps://www.icloud.com/photos


D. Restore your iPhone from a Backup:

Have any backups of this iPhone prior to this occurrence? If so, restore your iPhone from one that has these photos (the most recent backup, ideally). If not, then take this as a learning experience, knowing to always back up your device for recovery purposes. Important: Back up you iPhone prior to performing this restoration, should anything go wrong from here on out.


E. Where Else to Check:

  1. PC
  2. PDA
  3. eMail
  4. Mac Device
  5. Cloud Storage
  6. Android Phone
  7. USB Flash Drive
  8. External Hard drive
  9. Secure Digital Card
  10. Compact Flash Card

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How to recover shared Photos album in iPhone?

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