User profile for user: Marrvark
Marrvark Author
User level: Level 1
56 points

How can I find a corrupt photo in my iPhone library?

Hey,


I have an issue since about 3 months and dont know how to solve it. I have a corrupt photo or something like that in my photo library, but dont know how to find / delete it.


So, I took a photo just the very exact moment my phone turned off. I see the camera go off, then the phone die due to low battery. When I turned the phone on again, I had the issue that my iphone always and continuously synchs 1 item endlessly and tries to upload it to icloud. but it just never goes through. My iPhone hence has always one photo more in its library than my macbook does.


All the photos thereafter synch perfectly. If I take a photo,l it synchs to icloud right away and is available on my mac. and the phone is back to endlessly trying to synch one item.


I suppose that somewhere in my photos, i have a corrupt photo that can not be synched. the photo definitely doesnt show in my library, as I know exactly when I took the photo and where.


Are there any ways to get rid or find this corrupt file?


I have compulsions and only step into the squares of the side walk, hence, this is driving me crazy and help would be appreciated :-)


Thanks a lot and have a nice day!



[Re-Titled by Moderator]

iPhone 16 Pro, iOS 18

Posted on May 11, 2025 2:22 PM

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4 replies
User profile for user: léonie
léonie
User level: Level 10
200,531 points

May 12, 2025 3:40 AM in response to Marrvark

Another brute force method to get rid of the offending item:

If you are sure, that all good photos and videos are in iCloud, you could simply

  • disable iCloud Photos on your iPhone,
  • make sure, iCloud Photos is really disabled
  • then erase all photos from your iPhone, including the Recently Deleted album and all hidden photos.
  • Once the Photos Library is empty on your iPhone, enable iCloud Photos again and wait for all photos and videos to come back from iCloud.

This way you will be sure that all photos on the iPhone are compatible with iCloud. The drawback will be, that the iPhone will have to waste a lot of processing time to scan the library again for faces, places, categories.

And you will not know, which item it has been.

The usual suspects are videos in a legacy format or photos shared with you or downloads from the web.


If you really want to know, which item does not sync with iCloud to your Mac,

  • create a new album to check the syncing. Call the new album "SyncTest" or similar.
  • Add each and every item from the Photos library on your Mac to this new album.
  • Wait for this album to appear on your Mac.
  • On your Mac remove all items from this album so it will be empty on your Mac.
  • Wait for the changes to sync to your iPhone.
  • If there is a photo or video that has not been synced to your Mac it will remain in the "SyncTest" album on your iPhone. Transfer these items to your Mac for testing.




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User profile for user: Matti Haveri
Matti Haveri
User level: Level 6
19,706 points

May 11, 2025 11:07 PM in response to Marrvark

If all else fails you could use Applications/Image Capture.app to copy all images from the iPhone via USB to the Mac, verify the copy and backup the copied files elsewhere (just in case), and then use Image Capture delete all images in the iPhone. If that is not enough to fix it, additionally backup, and reset the iPhone to factory defaults and hope the restore does not bring back the initial problem.

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How can I find a corrupt photo in my iPhone library?

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