iPhone photos automatically go to iCloud Recently Deleted overnight

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Level 1

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iPhone photos automatically go to iCloud Recently Deleted overnight

My mom has in iPhone14 with OS27.0.1. She had a person come help her with her phone and the person did something in iCloud. Now, every night all her photos/videos she has stored in her phone disappear and are in the Recently Deleted folder of iCloud. I helped her restore all her photos one day (restored to library in iCloud and synced to her phone) and she verified the photo count was 4,000+ on her phone. The next morning, her photo count was 0 and all photos were back in the iCloud Recently Deleted folder. We repeated this twice with the same result.

She has 200GB iCloud storage (only used 15) and 128GB on her iPhone (she has used 66.)

Is there some setting that the person changed? Thank you.

Posted on Oct 5, 2026 10:44 AM

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Answer 1

Oct 6, 2026 7:46 AM in response to JAB_

JAB_ wrote: … every night all her photos/videos she has stored in her phone disappear and are in the Recently Deleted folder of iCloud.

I don't get the shift from phone to iCloud in describing the pictures. Are they in Recently Deleted on the phone? Why are you not moving the pictures out of Recently Deleted on the phone?

Can you confirm that the iCloud account on the Phone is the same as same as the iCloud account you are seeing at iCloud.com?

Do you have “Optimize Storage” checked in Settings>[name]>iCloud>Photos>

Are the pictures at iCloud.com the same as on the phone?

At Settings>Battery, what do Battery Health, Maximum Capacity, and Cycle Count say?

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Answer 2

JAB_ Author

Level 1

4 points

Oct 6, 2026 10:22 AM in response to Richard.Taylor

Thank you for helping me. Sorry I didn’t make it clear.

The pictures are gone from the phone but when I go to iCloud on a computer they are all in Recently Deleted. The Library in iCloud (logged into the computer) is also empty.

Optimize Storage was checked. I had her switch to Download and keep originals but it did the same thing.

Yes, the username and password is the same for iPhone and iCloud.

Yes, the photos are the same.

I’ll check the battery life when I get to her house (later today.)

She is not manually deleting these pictures off her phone but I will look for a deleted folder on her phone.

Thank you again.

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Answer 3

JAB_ Author

Level 1

4 points

Oct 6, 2026 11:38 AM in response to JAB_

Battery -max capacity 82%

She has an iPhone 14 so it doesn’t show cycle count.

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