Edits on photos in iPhone, disappear and photos are reversed to original

i have edited 1000 photos in my iPhone, using all the settings: crop, rotate, brighten etc.

when I woke up the next morning all the edits were undone.


I turned off cellular data for photos and tried editing a few more photos... but the edits disappeared again the next morning.


is it the optimize setting? I just turned this off as I see photos was attempting to upload to iCloud.

Posted on Apr 21, 2018 4:28 AM

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38 replies

Apr 22, 2018 4:11 AM in response to sterling r

I ran 2 separate tests. And still waiting for all full resolution photos to down load. after turning off optimize.


The issue seems connected to the iCloud.


I made one edit - crop on a photo and the crop was undone the next day, with optimize off for new photos.


Then turning off internet connection to photos, I made another edit, and the edit remained.

Apr 21, 2018 4:57 PM in response to StrawberryHeaven

Hey StrawberryHeaven!

Welcome to the Apple Support Communities. I understand your iPhone isn't saving any photo edits, and I can totally appreciate why that would be an inconvenience. Let's see if we can figure out what's going on. First of all, you didn't mention anything about the software version, so would you mind backing up your iPhone , then double-check that it's running the latest software version: Update your iPhone, iPad, or iPod touch - Apple Support

Once that's done, if it still isn't saving your edits, simply head to Settings > [your name] > iCloud > Photos and switch iCloud Photo Library off. Leave it that way for a few minutes, then turn it back on.

These steps will get us started in the right direction, so let's cover them before moving into any more advanced troubleshooting. Let me know what you find so we can keep working together if need be.

Cheers!

Apr 22, 2018 3:57 AM in response to sterling r

Hi Sterling!


Yes my iPhone is up to date with iOS 11.3. iPhone 8plus purchased a few months ago (takes great photos btw)


When I go to turn iCloud off, there is a warning that the original and full resolution photos have not been downloaded yet. This is because I turned off the setting ‘Optimize’.


I like to see if the edits return if the photos are downloaded, hopefully reversing the bug? I’ll be back to report more. Thanks

Aug 22, 2018 2:31 PM in response to StrawberryHeaven

✅ This was happening to me and through some testing I think I have found the issue.


I edit my photos via VSCO (free) on my iPhone X. After editing, when saving to the camera roll, the photos would appear for 2-3 seconds then disappear. Thankfully, the edits are stored in the VSCO studio and not lost.


In trying to solve this, I found that even when exporting the edited photos directly to my Mac via AirDrop and manually adding into Photos - the edits were mysteriously stripped of all edits and returned to Live iPhone photos within that same folder. I also found that this was only happening with photos that I took with my iPhone and not photos that were sent to me via text, etc.


My only workaround so far has been to directly export all recent VSCO edits to my Mac via AirDrop, then edit re-save with Photoshop to strip metadata from the images and manually re-add to Photos. So far all images remain and iCloud has backed up Photos on both Mac and iPhone.


The core issue has to be with third party application exports and file naming. When looking at the original photos and edited photos side by side, it appeared that the filename was not changed correctly therefore Photos would strip all edits and return the photo to its original state.

Aug 28, 2018 1:54 PM in response to nickpayne21

All - Honestly, I could not wait anymore and called Apple to see what’s going on and if they had a suggestion. The rep on the phone (2nd level support) confirmed that it is a known issue and he had 5 open cases where folks were waiting on the resolution. He asked me with confidence to upgrade to V 11.4.1 and that would resolve the issue. I did upgrade and the issue is gone on my phone. All my edits stay now...

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Edits on photos in iPhone, disappear and photos are reversed to original

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