Recovering missing photos from iCloud after deletion on iPhone

Hi, Yesterday I deleted my photos from the gallery and even removed them from the Recently Deleted folder. After that, they went to iCloud—some of them were still there and I was able to recover those, but some were also missing from iCloud. I wanted

The photos aren’t in iCloud either.




[Edited by Moderator]

iPhone 14 Pro Max, iOS 18

Posted on Sep 22, 2025 11:09 PM

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Posted on Sep 23, 2025 8:22 AM

iCloud is a Synchronization Service, so it keeps the Photos Library at iCloud exactly the same as the Library on your iPhone. You're very lucky that you made it to iCloud Photos before the synchronization was complete, or you would've lost them all. Deleted pictures normally remain in the "Recently Deleted" view for 30 days, and then they are removed permanently. This safety feature can be defeated by choosing to prematurely delete pictures from the "Recently Deleted" view. If you chose to defeat the safety, there is no other.

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Question marked as Top-ranking reply

Sep 23, 2025 8:22 AM in response to punader

iCloud is a Synchronization Service, so it keeps the Photos Library at iCloud exactly the same as the Library on your iPhone. You're very lucky that you made it to iCloud Photos before the synchronization was complete, or you would've lost them all. Deleted pictures normally remain in the "Recently Deleted" view for 30 days, and then they are removed permanently. This safety feature can be defeated by choosing to prematurely delete pictures from the "Recently Deleted" view. If you chose to defeat the safety, there is no other.

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Recovering missing photos from iCloud after deletion on iPhone

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