How can I recover old photos from iCloud library on iPhone?

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Level 1

4 points

How can I recover old photos from iCloud library on iPhone?

Hello, I am changing my old iphone to new one. My old one had photos from many years and over 500 of the photos had exclamation point and were blurry, which were not accessible to airdrop or save to files. I thought the icloud storage could be the problem so i bought the 50gb icloud plan. But it was not downloading because the photos app keeps saying unable to proceed due to not enough icloud storage although when i look at the icloud storage settings it is used only 5gb out of 50gb. When i try to toggle on and off the icloud photos, it says that if i turn it off all the 528 low resolution photos will be removed cause it failed to download. When i log into icloud.com the photos are not there. So i updated the latest ios and synced my phone to icloud only to find out all the photos from my different device were getting synced. The worst problem is I can’t find my old 500 photos. Is it possible to be replaced by the icloud library? If so, what to do now?

[Re-Titled by Moderator]

iPhone 13 Pro, iOS 18

Posted on Apr 23, 2025 5:19 PM

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Answer 1

TheLittles

Level 10

203,007 points

Apr 24, 2025 9:27 PM in response to Urlannn

"icloud library replaced old photos on device"

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I. Transferring to a New iPhone:

Get a Reliable Location, then Use Quick Start:

When transferring to a new iPhone, Quick Start is the best route to take. This is the link to use: Use Quick Start to Transfer Data to a New iPhone or iPad - Apple Support. So, reset your new iPhone to factory settings, and then perform Quick Start transfer.

II. Troubleshooting Lost Photos:

Five Things to Try:

A. Start here: If you're Missing Photos or Videos in the Photos app - Apple Support

B. Check "Recently Deleted":

For iOS16 and later, you can tap "Recently Deleted", and see if they are shown there.

C. Check iCloud, Directly:

For Photos: Go here, and see if they reside in iCloud: https://www.icloud.com/photos

D. Restore your iPhone from a Backup:

Have any backups of this iPhone prior to this occurrence? If so, restore your iPhone from one that has these photos (the most recent backup, ideally). If not, then take this as a learning experience, knowing to always back up your device for recovery purposes. Important: Back up you iPhone prior to performing this restoration, should anything go wrong from here on out.

E. Where Else to Check:

PC
PDA
eMail
Mac Device
Cloud Storage
Android Phone
USB Flash Drive
External Hard drive
Secure Digital Card
Compact Flash Card

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Answer 2

markwmsn

Level 6

16,715 points

Apr 24, 2025 8:57 PM in response to Urlannn

There is one class of content that is always replaced when iCloud Photos is enabled on your phone. That includes any photos and videos that were synced to the phone from a computer using iTunes or Finder. That older synchronization method is mutually exclusive with iCloud Photos; they cannot coexist on the same device, so the items pushed from a computer are removed when you enable iCloud Photos on the device.

However, the Photos is supposed to warn you before removing them and give you the option to prevent the loss (by not enabling iCloud Photos). Did you not get any warning?

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How can I recover old photos from iCloud library on iPhone?

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