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patricia657
User level: Level 1 (4 points)

Recovering permanently deleted photos from iCloud Photos

Hello, I urgently need help recovering thousands of photos that were accidentally deleted from my iCloud Photos library.


I have two iPhones connected to the same Apple Account with iCloud Photos enabled.


Yesterday, I deleted photos from my old iPhone and also emptied its Recently Deleted folder. My current iPhone still showed all the photos yesterday, but today they disappeared from there as well.


The photos cover approximately five months and are very important to me.


I also have an iCloud backup of my old iPhone dated yesterday, approximately 5.8 GB in size.


Could you please check whether there is any possibility of recovering my permanently deleted iCloud Photos or restoring an earlier version of my photo library?


I have not reset or restored either device.


Thank you for your help.

Posted on Nov 9, 2026 6:51 PM

4 replies

Matti Haveri
User level: Level 7 (22,314 points)

Nov 9, 2026 11:45 PM in response to patricia657

iCloud Drive and Photos is not a backup but a sync service. So also any mistakes are synced to other devices, as you have noticed.


If iCloud Photos is enabled, your iPhone iCloud Backup does not include your photos and videos (because they are stored in the cloud already). On the other hand, then Mac backup (via Time Machine, Carbon Copy Cloner or Super Duper) does backup Photos library. You do have such crucial backup, do you? (Granted, optimized photos is a fly in that ointment because local backup might only have thumbnails of the optimized images and movies).

Niel
User level: Level 10 (756,437 points)

Nov 9, 2026 6:59 PM in response to patricia657

Unless it's in the backup, click here and contact Apple Support through the "Get more help" or "Tell us what’s happening" section at the bottom of the page.


The people on these boards are mostly other customers and don't have inside access to Apple's servers.


(265495)

léonie
User level: Level 10 (205,585 points)

Nov 10, 2026 12:13 AM in response to Matti Haveri

Matti Haveri wrote:
... On the other hand, then Mac backup (via Time Machine, Carbon Copy Cloner or Super Duper) does backup Photos library...

It is very difficult to get a reliable backup of the Photos Library at all, once we enable iCloud Photos. Even Time Machine or Cloning software can only backup the items that are locally stored on the Mac. If we are using optimize Mac Storage with iCloud Photos, the Time Machine backup will be incomplete, and even if the Photos Library is not optimized, there may originals missing from the Time Machine backup. The Photos.app does neither have a status indicator telling us, if all originals have already been downloaded, nor a command to force the download.I'm occasionally testing, if my iCloud Photos Library has been fully downloaded from iCloud by making a copy of the library on an external drive and opening the copy in photos. Usually there are some missing items. When I copy the Photos Library with Power Photos, I will get a list of the filenames of the incomplete items and can force the download by exporting the originals.

I found the safest way to have a backup of photos it helps to archive copies of the originals whenever I am taking new photos.


Matti Haveri
User level: Level 7 (22,314 points)

Nov 10, 2026 1:45 AM in response to léonie

léonie wrote:
Matti Haveri wrote:
It is very difficult to get a reliable backup of the Photos Library at all, once we enable iCloud Photos.

Yes. One option is to install a barebones macOS on a large external disk, and enable iCloud Photos without optimization there (and optionally also iCloud Drive). Then occasionally boot to that volume and let iCloud sync all items locally (might take a while and might be clumsy to check when that is done, though...). Then use Time Machine, Carbon Copy Cloner or Super Duper to backup that external disk to another external disk.


BTW CCC has an option to download, backup, and evict optimized internal iCloud Drive.


even if the Photos Library is not optimized, there may originals missing from the Time Machine backup

When might that happen?

Originally posted at discussions.apple.com/thread/256391682