Thousands of iPhone

Question

wiggaso Author

Level 1

5 points

Thousands of iPhone

Hello,

I’m reaching out with a serious issue and really hope you can help me.

Today, a significant part of my photo library (around 60,000 photos) suddenly disappeared from my iPhone.

For reference, my device is running iOS 26.

It seems like the iPhone automatically cleared its storage and deleted a huge number of photos by itself.

Initially, my iPhone storage was full (127 GB used of 127 GB total). I tried to free up around 2–5 GB by deleting some unnecessary files, but the device didn’t actually reduce the used space.

After performing several restarts, the storage started to behave strangely — instead of freeing up small amounts, the system suddenly cleared a large portion of data, dropping from 127 GB used to only 34 GB.

I only manually deleted a few photos and videos, but almost all of my photos disappeared.

For a short time, some photos started reappearing on their own, as if they were being restored, but then the process stopped.

Unfortunately, not all of my photos were synced with iCloud, so many of them are now missing. I’ve started an iCloud restore process, but the photos are still not loading.

In panic, I upgraded my iCloud storage plan from 2 TB to 6 TB, but that didn’t help either.

I also don’t have any available backups.

Could you please advise:

– What could have caused this?

– Is there any chance to recover my lost photos?

– Could this be an iOS 26 bug or a more serious system issue?

This situation is very stressful for me, and I would be extremely grateful for your help.

Thank you very much in advance.

Posted on Nov 11, 2025 4:59 PM

Reply

Answer 1

Nov 11, 2025 5:41 PM in response to wiggaso

First of all, you could buy 1000GB of iCloud Storage and that would never help with the memory on your iPhone. Device Storage and iCloud Storage are not related. Once purchased an iPhone will only have as much memory as it had out of the box. The chances are you'll never need the 6TB of iCloud Storage you bought. This link explains the difference between device storage and iCloud storage --> What's the difference between device storage and iCloud storage? - Apple Support

Next, once your device fills up, things can and will go wrong. The device is essentially unable to perform the most basic of functions when it is out of space.

To tell you what happened, we couldn't know. You ran the risk of things going awry. What I don't understand is if you had 2TB of iCloud Storage, WHY weren't you performing regular, nightly backups of your iPhone? That's the entire reason to have space in iCloud. If the photos disappeared, you should look in the Recently Deleted folder, but I would guess they're not there and if they weren't backed up anywhere or synced with iCloud, they are simply gone, without any means to restore them. It is NOT an iOS 26 bug. Your system was overloaded and something bad happened.

You clearly own an iPhone with not enough storage to meet your storage needs. Today, with new iPhones, they come with 256GB to start and you can buy an iPhone with much more storage.

I realize this doesn't help you much. But the bottom line is, if the photos aren't in your recently deleted folder in the Photos App, they weren't synced with iCloud, nor is there a backup, then the photos are gone.

Reply

Answer 2

Nov 11, 2025 6:28 PM in response to wiggaso

I understood what you said in your first post. But something went wrong, which often happens when a phone's memory is full. Everything I said is correct and I can't alter reality for you. Either the photos were synced with iCloud or backed up somewhere. If neither, then they are gone and won't likely be brought back. It's YOUR job to manage the memory on your iPhone before something goes wrong. What you really need to do is buy a new iPhone with much more memory to avoid this happening in the future.

Reply

Answer 3

Bob Timmons

Level 10

187,448 points

Nov 11, 2025 6:27 PM in response to wiggaso

The main storage on my iPhone was completely full.

And that......is something that you should never let happen.

As lobsterghost1 has already mentioned, all kinds of unpredictable and bad things can happen when you run out of space. And yes, these things can happen "on their own".

You would want to always have at least 10-15 GB of free space on your phone. More would be better.

Reply

Answer 4

wiggaso Author

Level 1

5 points

Nov 11, 2025 6:17 PM in response to lobsterghost1

Hi! I wanted to clarify the situation in more detail so it’s clear what happened.

The main storage on my iPhone was completely full. I tried to free up a couple of gigabytes, but it didn’t work, and all the photos in my gallery remained in place. To try to trigger the memory cleanup process, I restarted my iPhone, as this sometimes helps. During this time, it showed “iCloud Photos Sync.”

After the restart, the storage was freed not by a couple of gigabytes as expected, but by tens of gigabytes, and my iPhone’s storage started behaving very strangely: it was initially 127 GB full, then suddenly dropped to 66 GB, then went up and down again — literally “jumping” on its own.

All the photos in the gallery disappeared, even those that are in iCloud, although I can see them on the iCloud website. Only a small portion of the photos appeared — the iPhone seemed to start restoring them on its own, but then the process stopped.

I had a 2 TB iCloud plan, but it was full, and new photos hadn’t synced yet, so not all new data was in the cloud. After this issue, I upgraded my iCloud storage to 6 TB in hopes of recovering the photos. Currently, my iPhone is performing “iCloud sync” and restoration.

Given all of this, is there a chance that all the photos will return to the device?

It feels like this is a real system glitch, because there were files in the gallery, and to remove such a huge amount manually, I would have had to delete them all myself — which I did not. The iPhone did this on its own.

Reply

Answer 5

Nov 11, 2025 6:51 PM in response to wiggaso

So you’re telling us that BOTH device storage AND iCloud storage were full-up?

That is certainly one way to live dangerously.

Reply

Thousands of iPhone

Similar questions