Why do my portrait mode photos revert back to normal photos overnight?

I noticed this happening when I was on holiday in France 3 weeks ago. Assumed it was just because wifi/4g issues overseas caused syncing issues but it would be fine once I got home. Turns out that every single photo I have edited (around 2000+ out of 20,000 as most edits I automatically 'favourite') have all gone! It's still happening now though, usually a few days after I take and edit a photo. The strange thing is i've paused uploads to iCloud yet it's still happening. All the edited photos DO appear to be on my iCloud account, but not sure how I can get these to sync down to my iPhone. I don't want all the unedited versions on my phone to overwrite all those on iCloud. :/

My wife and I are both experiencing this same issue. I turned off “Optimize iPhone Storage”, yet the issue persists. I do not understand why iCloud should have anything to do with utilizing the full features of the camera, but I suppose I will try disabling all usage of iCloud next. Portrait mode was a huge reason for upgrading our old iPhones to the iPhone X, and now it is a completely useless feature. This is totally unacceptable.

i keep getting notified that my iCloud is full. I’m not sure why that would have anything to do with my photos

If you are using iCloud Photo Library and "Optimize Storage", your iPhone may no longer be able to download the full resolution originals from iCloud, and this will prevent Photos from working properly.

Either free storage in iCloud or purchase more iCloud Storage. But as long as you have not solved the problem with your iCloud Storage it is not save to edit or use your photos in iCloud at all. Do you have a backup copy of all photos in your iCloud Library on a computer?

I’ve recently spotted this same issue since the most recent iOS update so came on here to look for answers! I think I, like most, have maxed out their free iCloud storage but I went and tried turning that off to see if it helped. Whilst I was looking at options I randomly clicked on the EDIT option for a photo that I had taken in Portrait mode that had now reverted to a normal image. And there in the edit options was the option to turn Portrait mode back on for the image! It would seem that the portrait image is still there, but has just been turned off for some reason with this iOS update!!!!

Hope this helps...

Thank you! I am relieved to see that my portrait mode images are not entirely lost. It is inconvenient to be required to manually reactivate each portrait mode photo in edit, but this is clearly better than permanently losing them.

Thanks again for the workaround.

Actually, I already toggled the “portrait” button once and made color changes, but the next day THEY REVERTED BACK TO NON-PORTRAIT ORIGINAL IMAGE AGGGGGAIN and lost all the color edits I made as well. Clearly, it can revert back more than once. WHAT THE ****, APPLE!!!!!

Still doing it to me, literally every other day, I’m actually giving up on bothering editing images on the phone now as it just keeps reverting. Not even uploading them the iCloud properly either. And now, pics I have solely on my phone (recent ones that for some reason haven’t uploaded to iCloud) won’t even allow me to edit them. Keeps just saying ‘downloading’ the moment I hit edit... despite the fact that I have all original stored ont he phone! The first thing ever yhat is actually making me finally switch to a Google phone and leave Apple. :/

This isn’t correct solution as I have option to save original images turned on and still have issues with portrait photos removing filter over night.

Entire iPhone is backed up regularly (every nigt) without issues.

One thing I noticed is that this happened to me twice now and both times when I was on holiday.

Only affected on pictures taken on holiday not other pictures. Very strange.

So definitely iOS bug. This should be fixed as it is very annoying.

I had the same problem. I don’t know if it’s about Icloud or something else, but if you press on ‘edit’ -of the photo that has been taken in portrait mode- at the middle top, there is a text thay says ‘portrait’. When you press on that it automatically turns back the photo to its original. :)

No. It will revert AGAIN the next day. Example: portrait -> normal -> portrait -> normal. And it won’t stop. Every morning...back to normal! This is a major problem with the iOS bc it takes me days to select and edit the perfect shots before I post them anywhere. It’s wasting my time BIG TIME.

I have an idea why this is happening. If, like me, you have not updated you iMac or MacBook Pro to High Sierra, it will keep happening because the Portrait effect did not exist in the earlier desktop OS version of the Photos app (Sierra). Updating your desktop OS to High Sierra should fix the problem.

However, after you update to High Sierra you will have to buy a new license for MS Office, if you use it. Also, if you have a machine that is older than mid-2012, it may slow down with High Sierra. For these reasons, I have not updated to High Sierra and I am just living with the Portrait effect incompatibility for now.

SOLUTION:

Step 1: Settings/Photos, select “Download and Keep Originals”

Step 2: Upgrade iCloud storage by paying $1 per month. :-(

I did both of these things and now my portrait mode photos are not reverting back to non-portrait mode. It is ridiculous that I am required to pay Apple another $1 per month for portrait mode to function on my $1,150 phone with over 200GB of available storage, but this solution has been working for me for several weeks now.

That also did not work for me. I’ve already been paying $2.99/mo for iCloud upgraded storage, AND my phone has always always always been set to “keep origs” and never “optimize storage”. Yet every morning, I wake up to the wonderful gift of having all my edits and portrait settings wiped cleaned! Like today! Only **** reason I bought an iPhone X was for the front and back portrait mode!!!

I’m having the same issue and it’s extremely frustrating! I just bought this phone 2 months ago and it’s been doing this ever since I bought it. I just didn’t realize it right away. Not until I was going back to my edited photos and thinking I was crazy that they were not edited anymore, and my portrait photos no longer had the blurred background.

I spent 2 hours on the phone with Apple the other day trying to correct this issue. They couldn’t figure out the problem and said it had to be an issue with the internal software in the phone. He quickly back tracked and said well since your iCloud is full and you don’t back up your photos we can’t help you. We suggest you just purchase more iCloud space!! ***!!

My husband got his phone the same day I did, and he’s been testing out portrait mode to see if it’s just my phone that has the issue. It is. His photos are staying in portrait mode which makes me even more frustrated lol. Ughhhhh