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Can I restore photos from a previous iCloud backup?

I've been looking all over Apple support and the interwebs this evening ... I had over 1,000 photos in my iCloud file and as I attempted to pull them back onto my phone, everything vanished. I'm trying (hoping) I can restore them from a previous iCloud backup but I can't find anything that states whether photos can be restored, or not. Help, please! Thank you.

Posted on Jul 26, 2021 6:42 PM

Reply
Question marked as Top-ranking reply

Posted on Jul 27, 2021 3:49 AM

An iCloud backup of your iPhone will include the photos, that have been on the iPhone, when you made the backup, but only, if you have not been using iCloud Photos. As soon as you enable iCloud Photos on the iPhone, the iCloud backup will no longer include any photos or videos from the Photos.app, because they are then stored in iCloud.

  • If iCloud Photos has not been enabled on the iPhone, and you made an iCloud backup of your iPhone, while the photos have still been on the iPhone, you can recover them by restoring the iPhone from the iCloud backup.
  • If iCloud Photos has been enabled on the iPhone, you cannot recover the photos from an iCloud backup - a backup on a computer may contain the photos, that have been downloaded to the iPhone.


What do you mean by "I had over 1,000 photos in my iCloud file"? How have you been using iCloud? iCloud Photos? iCloud Drive? On your iPhone? On a computer? If on a computer, what kind of computer? If the photos have been downloaded to a computer, the backup of your computer may include some of the photos.


2 replies
Question marked as Top-ranking reply

Jul 27, 2021 3:49 AM in response to cep500

An iCloud backup of your iPhone will include the photos, that have been on the iPhone, when you made the backup, but only, if you have not been using iCloud Photos. As soon as you enable iCloud Photos on the iPhone, the iCloud backup will no longer include any photos or videos from the Photos.app, because they are then stored in iCloud.

  • If iCloud Photos has not been enabled on the iPhone, and you made an iCloud backup of your iPhone, while the photos have still been on the iPhone, you can recover them by restoring the iPhone from the iCloud backup.
  • If iCloud Photos has been enabled on the iPhone, you cannot recover the photos from an iCloud backup - a backup on a computer may contain the photos, that have been downloaded to the iPhone.


What do you mean by "I had over 1,000 photos in my iCloud file"? How have you been using iCloud? iCloud Photos? iCloud Drive? On your iPhone? On a computer? If on a computer, what kind of computer? If the photos have been downloaded to a computer, the backup of your computer may include some of the photos.


Can I restore photos from a previous iCloud backup?

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