How can I recover 4 years of missing photos from my iPhone and iCloud?

Question

Level 1

4 points

How can I recover 4 years of missing photos from my iPhone and iCloud?

Went to show my kids some baby videos of themselves last night and instead found that 4 years of photos and videos are missing. Essentially everything from 2015-2019 including all pregnancy and baby photos are just gone. Even memories and albums I’ve saved.

i have done what every one suggests and checked hidden and deleted photos, made sure it’s synced and updated/restarted devices. Have also logged into the cloud but they are nowhere to be found. Absolutely crushed and don’t know what to do

[Re-Titled by Moderator]

Original Title: 4 years of photos disappeared

iPhone SE, iOS 18

Posted on Oct 1, 2025 2:47 PM

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Answer 1

slayliba

Level 1

12 points

Oct 2, 2025 3:50 AM in response to a_b_c14

Hii! I am so sorry you're going through this. Losing memories is literally the worst thing ever.

I have read several reports on iCloud syncing bugs in iOS 18 and have had a few problems myself.

I would suggest you first check if they're available on icloud.com. If they are there, it might just be a software bug. You would then need to update iOS, and it probably should be fixed. I hope this helps, and let me know how it goes!

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Answer 2

muguy

Level 10

91,154 points

Oct 2, 2025 4:01 AM in response to a_b_c14

If the photos are not on your synced device it’s unlikely those items still exist. You can check iCloud.com and see if the photos are there if perhaps your device has not synced. Photos are only removed off the user removes the images (even accidentally). You can always recover from the backups that you keep elsewhere off your most important data.

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