Deleted photos from iCloud and my phone, in spite of following the step-by-step upgrade

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Deleted photos from iCloud and my phone, in spite of following the step-by-step upgrade

Over the weekend I upgraded my phone, with it I paid for a new plan upgrade to expand my icloud usage.

I synced and backed up my previous phone to iCloud, it said it was a success. I immediately synced my new phone with iCloud, it said it was a success.

Lastly, I factory-reset my old phone and turned it in.

Fast fwd a few days, I go to look for some pics…I notice thousands are gone. Mostly everything from the last 4 months but some even up to last year.

When I log into iCloud on a browser, it has the same photos currently on my phone.

Regardless of following each step properly, are those deleted images now non existent? Have I truly lost all of these pictures? Is there a way to retrieve these items at all?

Extremely frustrated and sad at the loss of these memories.

iPhone 17, iOS 26

Posted on Dec 12, 2025 10:43 AM

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Answer 1

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Mac Jim ID

Level 9

60,848 points

Dec 12, 2025 10:53 AM in response to Melmontze

Backing up your phone does not save your photos when using iCloud Photos, and I suspect you had that turned on. You may have had success with the backup, but the photos may not have finished syncing with iCloud. The way you see the syncing progress in iCloud Photos is by going to Settings > [name on top] > iCloud > Photos, and the sync status should appear there.

In some cases, syncing will be put on hold and won't finish until the device is plugged into power and not currently being used. Thousands of photos will take quite a bit of time to sync, much longer than it would take to save an iCloud backup.

As for recovery, if that is the case and they had not finished syncing by verifying on the Photos page, then there is nothing to recover and the device that did have them is not wiped where recovery is not possible. Sorry.

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