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User profile for user: robogeo
robogeo Author
User level: Level 1
12 points

are permanently deleted photos REALLY gone?

I accidentally permanently deleted "iPhoto Events" album from my iPhone >iCloud>Mac. I went from 8,000 photos to 2,000. I restored some of them from an old time machine backup (March 2013). My iCloud account clearly reflects the deletion. I was told that hard drive data recovery options were futile, because the data was overwritten. Same for the iPhone flash memory. I gave up on any kind of data recovery a week ago, but now this question keeps nagging me: Maybe I missed something? Are my precious photos REALLY gone?

Posted on Aug 29, 2016 11:09 AM

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User profile for user: Rysz
Rysz
User level: Level 8
44,391 points

Posted on Aug 29, 2016 11:30 AM

If you're using Photos (not iPhoto), "deleted" images are held for about 30 days in the Recently Deleted album. If you "permanently" deleted them from that special album, they're gone for real.


If you're really still using iPhoto, they would have been moved to iPhoto Trash. Same rule, though, if you emptied the trash, they're gone.

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User profile for user: Rysz
Rysz
User level: Level 8
44,391 points

Aug 29, 2016 11:30 AM in response to robogeo

If you're using Photos (not iPhoto), "deleted" images are held for about 30 days in the Recently Deleted album. If you "permanently" deleted them from that special album, they're gone for real.


If you're really still using iPhoto, they would have been moved to iPhoto Trash. Same rule, though, if you emptied the trash, they're gone.

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User profile for user: robogeo
robogeo Author
User level: Level 1
12 points

Aug 29, 2016 12:30 PM in response to LarryHN

Thanks for the info Larry.


I'm on OS X 10.11.2 and Photos (?)


"iPhoto Events" was an album that appeared when I upgraded to El Capitan, which puzzled me at the time. That it was transferred and not converted, I really thought it could NOT be the root folder of my Photos Library but it was, and it just got incorporated into Photos.


My iPhone told me if you delete them they will be deleted from all your devices, via iCloud. I just didn't listen. I deleted some old videos (that I'd put on a hard drive), and the next day they were still on my computer so I foolishly decided to delete the biggest folder "iPhoto Events". Didn't know about the time lag when I did it...


The next day the grey squares started popping up where the photos had been, and I thought Oh boy, I think i've really done it. It went on for a few days.


I had issues with time machine interfering with normal operations. Kept meaning to get it going again but...


Rob

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User profile for user: LarryHN
LarryHN
User level: Level 10
106,110 points

Aug 29, 2016 11:45 AM in response to robogeo

It depends on exactly what have and what you did


What version of the OS and of hotos do you have?


If you delete an album from Photos the album is gone but the Photos are not gone - they are still in the library - this does not affect ICPL


If you remove photos form an album they are removed from the album but not from the library adn tehy are still in teh library - this does not affect ICPL


If you delete photos from an album they are moved to the recently deleted album for 30 days or until you specifically delete them from there, which ever comes first - this will remove them form ICPL also


What exactly did you do step by step?


And I seem to remember some early issues with OS X 10.1-.x that deleting the iPhoto Events Album causes unexpected results - I've not seen that for a ling time so assume it has been resolved in the bug fixes since the early releases - the current software is El Captain OS X 10.11.6 and Photos 1.5


LN

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are permanently deleted photos REALLY gone?

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