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Level 1

77 points

My iPhone photos have disappeared!

I just did a long trip in Europe and had a whopping 9,000 photos on my iPhone 4S, iOS 5.1.1. A couple of days ago, the phone started acting funny when I took video (cutting it off after 30 seconds, for example and rebooted) and slowed to a crawl when I was taking pics. It would sometimes just restart on its own. I still had 2GB left on my phone.

To make some more space, I turned off Photo Stream. About two hours later, I went to edit some photos and the phone restarted on its own. When it came back on, all 9,000+ photos (and my folders) were gone.I took a screenshot of the empty photos section, now that's the only picture in there... When I go into Settings/General/Usage, it indicates I still have 2GB available on the phone, which leads me to believe the photos are on there somewhere (or it'd be more like 20GB+ available).

Any help is appreciated. I'd sure love these pics back... Thanks!

iPhone 4S, iOS 5.1.1

Posted on Jul 1, 2012 8:17 PM

Best reply

Jackkiixx

Level 1

4 points

Posted on Jul 20, 2017 7:41 AM

randers4Jul 1, 2012 8:32 PM in response to johndeguzman

Level 9 (63,063 points)

Jul 1, 2012 8:32 PM Re: My iPhone photos have disappeared!in response to johndeguzman

You could always try force closing the Photos app and resetting your phone: double-tap the home button, locate Photos in the list at the bottom, tap and hold it until it wiggles, tap ➖ to close it, finish by tapping the home button. Then reset the phone: hold the on/off and home buttons until you see the Apple logo (ignore the off slider that appears first), then release.

I tried this and at first it didn't seemed to have worked fully. When it had reseted the phone only about 600 of my 9000+ images were there, I worried for ages but then after about 5-10 mins its just started to restore all of my images by its self, with a circle wheel at the bottom saying 'Restoring...' and now its slowly restoring all my images of 2 years.

About 15 or so minutes later and all my photos have been restored, I have closed the photos app and reopened it and even turned my phone off and on again and they are all still there.

Just to clarify for people as this first post was done in 2012 its July 2017 and I have a Iphone 6s+ with ios 10.2.1.

P.s Before I did this tactic I had read on a later post about deleting apps for memory... it didn't work and so I looked at the earlier posts and saw this one. I however don't know if the deleting of the apps helped towards the outcome I achieved overall or not.

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43 replies

johndeguzman Author

Level 1

77 points

Jul 2, 2012 1:31 PM in response to randers4

Every photo and video. That wasn't restoring from iCloud or anything... it just started happening on the device. Thanks for your help!

randers4

Level 9

63,519 points

Jul 2, 2012 1:37 PM in response to johndeguzman

You're welcome. Be sure to import your photos and videos to your computer so you don't lose them in the future. See http://support.apple.com/kb/HT4083.

johndeguzman Author

Level 1

77 points

Jul 2, 2012 2:04 PM in response to randers4

Thanks. I still wish I knew what happened!

Rektor

Level 1

4 points

Aug 17, 2012 7:32 AM in response to johndeguzman

I have the same problem.

I tried all the above but no luck. Is there anyway i can access the photo folder on the iphone from my macbook?

The photos reported on ''settings'' are more than the number that appears on photo app.

thanks

johndeguzman Author

Level 1

77 points

Aug 17, 2012 7:34 AM in response to Rektor

I don't have any ideas outside of what I did... Sorry!

Dec 1, 2012 2:46 PM in response to johndeguzman

This same thing happened to me - how did you get your photos to restore? I tried taking more pictures and nothing...

In my settings - usage it says I have 1.7GB worth of pictures on my phone - but NOTHING in my photo albums and I can't see my photo stream - though I can see my photo stream on my Mac

burelli9

Level 1

0 points

May 13, 2013 6:41 AM in response to johndeguzman

johndeguzman I have had the exact same thing happen to me.

How did you get it back? Via a restore?

Any help much appreciated. Many thanks. Joe.

johndeguzman Author

Level 1

77 points

May 13, 2013 6:47 AM in response to burelli9

It's there in the thread. Genius started taking pics and a strange "restore" started happening in the photo app pulling them all back in.

Oct 9, 2013 12:32 PM in response to johndeguzman

hello there can anyone help me?? iv just noticed that all my photos are gone.. I have checked the usage and it says that my camera roll has used 5.5GB but the camera roll folder itself is empty?? please can someone help me out i have pics of my little lad on it that i havent backed up.. PLEASE!!