Photos mark-up edits/annotations in photos lost after iPad update & iCloud sync

Dear Léonie

Many thanks for taking the time to respond. Very grateful for your help. Please find clarifications attached below.

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Where did you use the MarkUp tool? In Photos on your iPad or Photos on your Mac?

A) Mark up tool was used in photos on iPad only. Example attached below

Photo attached saved from google images > underlining, text added via markup and color tone warmed via photos feature > saved to photos > synced to iCloud

All changes have been lost

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Are your iPad and your Mac both syncing with iCloud Photo Library?

A) Yes (iPad, iPhone and iMac all sync to my iCloud)

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And have your screenshots been synced to the iPad with iCloud Photo Library or with iTunes photo sync?

A) The mark up tool edited screenshots have been saved from iPad to iCloud.com where the edits have also been lost (underline/text addition/tone changed to warm)

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Please explain in more detail your workflow - how you have used the two devices together.

A) Have always only used iCloud for all devices. However, prior to the update yesterday did not sync the iPad photos to cloud.

12 noon iPad updated/turned on iCloud sync —> iPad updates and no issues with anything after updates —> use photos with edits to study till 5pm —> switch off iPad to lock screen at 5pm —> turn on iPad at 9pm when I notice all edits except for around 10% of the photos are lost (90% lost) especially for those where background is black and font is white in the original photo.

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How the screenshot got to your iPad, where you edited them, which cloud services you are using for photos, now after the update and before the edits vanished.

A) Screenshot on iPad via screenshotting from pages/google/adobe/saving photos from iCloud Drive etc all to iPad photos —> primary edits done on iPad photos.

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Otherwise it is hard to say what might have happened.

FYI advisors at apple told me it may be

1) a bug

2) may need to allow all devices to sync to iCloud completely before edits reappear which I have done over the past 12+ hours but no luck.

Do hope you can advise. Thanks again.

*For copyright purposes please note that the original uploaded above photo does not belong to me. All rights belong to original owner.

Hi Léonie, thank you for your message.

- Perhaps I do need to give it more time, I have left my iMac and iPad up and running and will feedback on any progress (none at time of this message). I don't know if this is relevant but some of the images did recover the annotations on the icloud.com (not the iPad though) but those annotations seem to have disappeared after a few hours and the photos have reverted back to their unedited versions with none of the mark ups.

- I am indeed connected to a private wifi connection and have around 70GB out of 128 GB available on my iPad & 17GB of 50 GB free on iCloud, so storage was never the problem.

- I have seen the photos on thumbnail and enlarged - both are missing annotations.

- I only ever turned on iCloud on this iPad for the first time after the update so there is no chance that previous unedited/unmarked up versions of my photos were ever synced - so I am hoping there is a solution.

Will feedback once I hear back from Apple, any further suggestions/recommendations always welcome.

Many thanks for your time and advice.

Hi Léonie

I have never synced photos to the iPad with iTunes using a USB connection to the computer, in fact I have never synced or allowed access to my iPad from ANY computer or iMac.

And yes, I have saved the screenshots to the camera roll then organized them into albums.

Do you think there is any chance of data recovery if there is a bug?

Please help, many thanks.

Yes, the edited versions have been in the camera roll before I updated the system on the iPad and I have never used any iCloud service for photos previously (My Photo Stream/iCloud Photo Library), but the edited photos are not showing up on either my iPad where they were originally created or icloud.com

How do I access my last iCloud backup? It was completed yesterday BEFORE the edits disappeared (backup completed at 4.52 pm, edits had disappeared after that), however I completed the update and turned on iCloud photo library around 12pm noon (around 4 hours prior to back up completion), do I still have a chance and how can I try this out? Perhaps on a separate device?

Thanks again, super grateful for your help & advice.

Dear Léonie

THANK YOU SO MUCH FOR YOUR HELP - resetting the iPad to factory settings and then restoring from an iCloud Drive back up (from 5th April) prior to ever

A) doing the update (done on 6th April)

B) turning on iCloud Photo Library (done on 6th April)

has restored my iPad back to the previous iOS and all my 9000+ photos with edits are back as well (nearly 1/3rd have already downloaded and they all have their edits in place so I believe the rest will too).

I am not keen on ever turning on iCloud Photo Library on this iPad again after the issues I had.

Q) From your experience what would be the best way to store all these photos safely with the edits -

- time machine vs.

- iCloud Drive without iCloud Photo Library turned on from which I have currently done the restore vs.

- converting photos to PDF

Your experience and suggestions would be very much appreciated.

Thank you so much for your help in restoring my work - you are a lifesaver!