Recover photo's of stolen iPhone

Question

Recover photo's of stolen iPhone

Can anyone offer any advice or suggestions on if this can be done. My partner's iPhone 13 was stolen last week and when we brought a new iPhone yesterday and synced his iCloud, he has no photos or videos at all . Messages and contacts are from like 10 years ago. His backup and sync is always on however I'm only new to iPhone and apple and have no idea. Would we be able to get the photos off his stolen phone by logging into the iCloud app on a desktop? Or worse case be able to get the photos by the IMEI number from the old phone?

Any suggestions would be amazing

iPhone 16 Plus, iOS 18

Posted on Sep 28, 2025 7:00 PM

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Answer 1

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Sep 29, 2025 4:24 AM in response to Cassiescott90

Unless you get the stolen phone back (unlikely), you cannot retrieve the photos from it.

If you were using iCloud Photos, any photos that the phone had a chance to synchronize to iCloud would be in your iCloud account on Apple's servers, and you could retrieve them

by synchronizing another device to iCloud Photos, for that Apple Account
by logging into https://www.icloud.com/ from a Web browser

If you were not using iCloud Photos, but were making backups that included photos, it might be possible to get the photos back by restoring a backup. I don't believe that Apple provide any good way to see what in a backup without restoring it to a device (and wiping the current contents of that device in the process).

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Answer 2

Sep 29, 2025 2:17 AM in response to Cassiescott90

Double check that you are using the same Apple Account as recently or not some old account that was used 10 years ago.

Log-in to iCloud website and check what you see there. If there is lots of info, it might take a while to retrieve it to the new iPhone.

Was the stolen iPhone locked with fingerprint or Face ID? Was "Find My iPhone" enabled? If not, maybe the thief has deleted iCloud info and you might as Apple's official support if they have backups that can be retrieved.

https://www.icloud.com/

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