Hundreds of my photos have disappeared

7,000 of my photos have just vanished. Is this a possible bug with Apple software somehow? I did not delete that many photos on my iPhone nor did I delete any from the cloud since apple support says that they have no record of such. Any help or advice would be appreciated

I typed a long response to this yesterday given my efforts over the past week. Unfortunately, Apple deleted the post because I placed some blame on the organization. Blame resides where it is deserved. This is an ongoing issue; however, I spoke to five separate TAs over the past week and non acknowledged that this was an issue.

It is.

If these disappeared within the last 30 days, they will be in the "recently deleted" folder in Apple Photos or on icloud.com. If past 30 days, you are out of luck.

Icloud storage is not a backup. Rather, it is a "transfer station." If you use Time Machine, you can go copy the Photos Library from that and start the arduous process of bringing in your photos and de-duping them using a third-party app, such as Duplicate Photos Fixer Pro or Duplicate Photos Finder, to mention two. Both of those work well.

Apple has a serious issue with Photos with regard to deleting photos. I have been on calls with Apple technicians at least six times over the past two years and never has one said that they knew there was an issue. I find that fascinating, as I've noticed this for the past decade; as well, the community boards, like this one, are full with experiences like yours. I posted something like this two weeks ago and Apple didn't allow it to be posted. I didn't know Elon Musk was now running the company.

Make sure you make backups of your data. Icloud is not a backup. Time Machine is. Also, use the 3-2-1 rule: Have three backups on two different types of media (e.g., cloud; external hard drive) and at least one off site.

First off, iCloud back ups do not contain your photos; the photos are synced through your iCloud account to all your devices that have it enabled. The iCloud back up is more of the settings and other things that make your phone yours, background display, settings, ringtones, wifi networks... The photos part of iCloud is not a back up service, it is a synching service. Photos stored in the cloud are there for the purpose of syncing, not making a back up. What does iCloud back up? - Apple Support this article explains it in great detail. The only time the back up would contain your photos would be if you do not have iCloud Photos enabled. Then and only then, would those photos be stored in the back up. Archive or make copies of the information you store in iCloud - Apple Support discusses how to make archived back ups of your photos. I'm sorry for your data loss; by using the articles above I hope you can understand the different things the back up contains and how to make a safe back ups of information that you use with your Apple devices.

After a week of burning time dealing with this issue, the only thing I can recommend is do not assume that Apple Photos is perfect, because it is far from. It will delete photos from time to time for no real reason beyond some issues in programming. So, what should you do?

1. Create regular backups of all your photos and store them in a 3-2-1 format (at least three copies, in two different types of media, and one off site).
2. Do not simply make a backup of Apple Photos from the program. Take the time to export them into a non-Apple Photos file (e.g., a folder with jpegs). Save these in various places and use dates to clarify what the folder contains.
3. If you need to rebuild, find your backups if you have them; if you don't, you're out of luck.
4. Consider a third-party solution to Apple Photos, but they are costly. There is no guarantee that they won't lose photos, too, but it doesn't seem to be the case.
5. Be diligent, period. Don't assume the world is a wonderful place and that turmoil doesn't happen. It does. We lose photos and are left to cry. Be diligent.

You wrote: "and my iCloud account mirrors what is on the phone, which doesn't make sense."

But that is exactly how iCloud is supposed to be working. It is a syncing service, keeping the Photos Libraries on all your devices identical. With iCloud Photos enabled, you should always be seeing the same photos on all synced devices. When you import new photos to Photos on one of your devices, they will be synced to iCloud and from there to all your other devices. And when you delete photos on any of your devices, the photos will be deleted from iCloud Photos as well and from all other devices. With iCloud Photos you are essentially have one Photos Library in iCloud, that is mirrored on all synced devices.

I went to forward some photos to a friend today and hundreds of my photos have disappeared. I have a few photos from last week and then only photos from November 2023.

Did you delete photos from any of your devices, assuming they have been saved to iCloud or would be staying on your other devices?

Perhaps the dates on the photos are wrong and the missing photos are now sorted differently in "Library > All Photos". you may want to check, if the photos are appearing in a different month or year than you are expecting.

Photos may also appear to be missing, if a Filter has become enabled. While viewing an Album or "All Photos" tap the three dots and then "Filter". Is it set to "All items"? If not, change it to "All items".

if you have not only been using iCloud Photos but the Shared iCloud Photos Library as well, ensure, that the selector for the library has been set to "Both Libraries", not just your "Personal Library".

OK. So did you back-up your old phone's images and, if so, did you check they were on iCloud at that point? Did you delete the images from your old phone before you sold/destroyed it? If so, you might have deleted the corresponding iCloud images. Even so, you should still see them in the deleted items folder for up to 30 days ...

Why are the responses on this stream not in chronological order? It makes it very difficult to structure any response to specific comments or requests. This issue should be addressed as a matter of urgency if the serice is to have any real value.

I have hundreds of photos missing from iCloud! I agree that what’s the point of iCloud??? Luckily, I have them backed up Costco/Shutterfly, but not sure what to do going forward! Went through and deleted almost a thousand of photos/videos (I do have ALOT) to make room but nothing did not seem to restore anything.

There seems to be a real problem here in identifying exactly what the problem may be.

My view is that Apple urgently need to address the fact that there seem to be increasing numbers of people losing photos from their iCloud account. However, the water is being muddied because some people do not understand that images deleted from the iCloud will disappear at the same time on all their linked devices.

Also, there are frequent references to Apple having been so helpful in undeleting images. This is only when the deletion occurred a maximum of 30 days before the deletions were noticed. Apart from those who are glued to their devices hour after hour, this is not a long period of time.

Finally, it would be helpful if people reporting losses could confirm whether they have sole use of all their linked devices. If not, anything could have happened and, in most cases, probably has!

I had this happen to me just yesterday. I'd been checking photos on my phone on Sunday as I needed to send someone a video, only to find all photos except for 2024 on my phone. I'd lost everything including the last photos I took with my mum before she passed.

After finding this thread doing a google search, I did what a couple of people recommended and called Apple. The tech guy I spoke to was able to restore all my photos.

the key is you have to call within 30 days of noticing your photos missing.

Sorry to hear that. They told me that’s they keep 30 days in the deleted file. And after that’s they cannot do anything. Unfortunately in this case we never deleted. They cannot help. I’m considering searching form a company call data recovery, which is very expensive and not sure if that’s is safe. Again I’m sorry to hear about that’s . It’s very disappointing about Apple and ver expensive phones .

That is completely inaccurate. If you purchase 2TB of icloud service you have that much space on an Apple server and that is where your photos reside. They don't if you choose not to save them to the cloud or you do not purchase or have enough space. But if you select save and have the space, they absolutely reside on an apple server.

That is just a silly comment.

Over half of my camera roll has suddenly disappeared. So many important photos, they’re not in iCloud, they’re not anywhere. I called apple and after trying a few things they said there’s nothing they can do further. WHAT IS GOING ON!!

Very sorry to hear. This seems to be the M.O of Apple Support/Engineering. They don't even acknowledge there is an issue ("We haven't heard about this"), which is incredible because there is a long-term issue here. I've known and epxerienced this for 10 years, at least. Photos dissolving into the ether. You only find out when you go look for something. No backup.

Apple needs to hold themselves accountable or get out of the photo storage business.