Old pictures in the Favorites folder disappeared on my iPhone 15 Pro Max Photos app

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Level 1

33 points

Old pictures in the Favorites folder disappeared on my iPhone 15 Pro Max Photos app

I have an iPhone 15 Pro Max running iOS 18.5. I just went looking in Photos of some old pictures in the Favorites folder. There used to be dozens and dozens of them but now there are only 2. FWIW they happen to be very old going back probably at least 20 years.

Anyone else experiencing this issue or have any ideas what might have happened?

[Re-Titled by Moderator]

Original Title: What happened to all my favorites?

iPhone 15 Pro Max, iOS 18

Posted on Aug 21, 2025 09:12 PM

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Answer 1

Aug 22, 2025 06:52 AM in response to léonie

léonie wrote: …By default you will only see a curated collection of photos in your favorites album.

Like yours, my "Favorites" Library shows the same number for All and for Summary. Understanding Photos' AI is like trying to figure out why my cat does what she does…

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Answer 2

JohnnyDawg Author

Level 1

33 points

Sep 9, 2025 04:44 PM in response to JohnnyDawg

Turns out its not just the Favorite folders. I have lost over about 10,000 pictures on my my iPhone that go back over 20 years. So many of them are old irreplaceable family memories.

I just happened to check the settings, General > About and it shows only 1,238 Photos. Same issue with my iPad Pro and iCloud.

How could this possibly have happened and is there any hope at all?

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Answer 3

Sep 10, 2025 07:19 AM in response to JohnnyDawg

Of course, we can't know what you've done. Heck, half the time I don't even know what I've done! And that may be the case for you. That's why we keep backups of our stuff on external drives. So it sounds like you need to go to your backup.

You can see this:

If you're missing photos or videos in the Photos app - Apple Support

If you don't use iCloud Photos, but you have Settings>Apple ID>iCloud Backup turned on, then you may be able to recover data from the last 30 days or so. You should look here:

Restore your iPhone, iPad, or iPod touch from a backup - Apple Support

“Restore” is what you do when you buy a new phone, so this safety, if you have it set, requires you to erase everything on your phone and replace it with the backup.

If you don't keep your own backups to an external drive, then there really isn't any place else to look.

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Answer 4

léonie

Level 10

199,927 points

Aug 22, 2025 12:01 AM in response to JohnnyDawg

By default you will only see a curated collection of photos in your favorites album.

While viewing the Favorites or All Photos check the menu in the lower right corner of the display. The button for the menu is marked with a photo grid. It needs to be set to "All Photos".

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