Lost photos on iCloud

Lolangton Said:

"Lost photos on iCloud: I’ve lost all my old photos from previous devices off my iCloud. Why is this and how do I restore them?"

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Why the Deletion? Unknowingly, you deleted them from the Photos app.

Three Things to Try:

A. Start here: If you're Missing Photos or Videos in the Photos app - Apple Support

B. Check iCloud, Directly:

For Photos: Go here, and see if they reside in iCloud: https://www.icloud.com/photos

C. Restore your iPhone from a Backup:

Have any backups of this iPhone prior to this occurrence? If so, restore your iPhone from one that has these photos (the most recent backup, ideally). If not, then take this as a learning experience, knowing to always back up your device for recovery purposes. Important: Back up you iPhone prior to performing this restoration, should anything go wrong from here on out.

D. Where Else to Check:

1. PC
2. PDA
3. eMail
4. Mac Device
5. Cloud Storage
6. Android Phone
7. USB Flash Drive
8. External Hard drive
9. Secure Digital Card
10. Compact Flash Card

Hi there Lolangton, welcome to Apple Support Communities. I am so sorry to here that you have lost your photos from iCloud but I want to try to help you get them back. Lets jump in.

First, is there any other Apple ID accounts that you may have used to back up to the iCloud to? If youre not sure if you have other Apple ID accounts, you can check to see if you use an email account as an Apple ID by going to https://iforgot.apple.com/appleid. We can start to check any or all accounts for data on www.icloud.com and seeing if perhaps some of the photos are saved there.

If that was not any luck or you are certain you have only one iCloud that backs up your data, we'll want to look in the recently deleted folder of the iCloud photos. You can do that by following the steps outlined here.

There is also the possibility that you would be able to restore the photos that were on your device by restoring the your device from a backup that was stored in the iCloud or stored on your computer, if you did not have iCloud photos turned on from within settings.

*Be advised* that restoring your device from a back up means you will have to erase your device as it currently is, which could result in even more data loss, so maybe consider backing up your device to a computer before going this route. Details on how to restore you phone from an iCloud or locally saved back up can be found here.

You can always reach out to Apple Support for advise or guidance on these steps by using Contact Apple for support and service - Apple Support.

Let us know if that works or if theres anything else we can do to assist you.

-Big_Tex

If you are using iCloud Photos, you have to be very careful when deleting photos. You must not delete any important photo, that you want to keep on any device, that is syncing with iCloud Photos, because iCloud Photos is syncing your devices and keeping the photo libraries identical. Deleting a photo on any device will remove it from iCloud and all other devices as well.

And the nightly iCloud backup of your iPhone does not include the photos from your iCloud Photos Library, because they are already in iCloud. It is important to make additional safety copies of your photos on a computer, so you can recover accidentally deleted photos.

for example, if you have been syncing a computer with iCloud Photos as well, the backup of your computer may have saved your iCloud Photos, if you downloaded them to the computer.

The photos were deleted from synced devices and moved in recently deleted , 30 days have gone by now they are erased so can't be recovered .