This bug could be embarrassing!
With the current iOS update 17.5. Apparently, photos that were deleted long ago have reappeared on many devices. Users report that images that were removed from iPhones and other devices years ago suddenly appear in the Photos app again after installing the update. And they appear to have been newly added.
In the worst case, these can be images that you don't really want to see again, as one Reddit user reports. Nude photos that she had taken with her partner three years ago and then deleted appeared on her website, writes the “New York Post”.
“I wanted to send a picture and saw that the latest photos in my album were not suitable material for work,” she complained. The woman insists that the pictures were definitely permanently removed years ago and cannot understand how the pictures can still reappear.
“Same here,” writes another Reddit user. “I have four pictures from 2010 that keep showing up as the most recently uploaded pictures to iCloud.”
“They just appeared out of nowhere,” reports one user on X (formerly Twitter). Another complains: “This is the worst software experience in a long time.”
iOS 17.5, which was released in April, was supposed to bring security updates, bug fixes and gimmicks like a new wallpaper to the devices. But now there are also some rather unwanted new features.
But where do the old photos come from? Normally, iOS moves deleted images to the Recently Deleted album for 30 days before they are permanently deleted from the device and from iCloud. This process can be Apple It can take up to 40 days, or months if you use the shared library. However, the current bug seems to be restoring photos that were deleted well beyond that time period.
“The problems could be due to an indexing error, corruption of the photo library or a synchronization problem between local devices and iCloud photos,” suspect the experts from the technology blog “MacRumors”Another possibility is that Apple accidentally caused a new photo sync error when trying to fix it. And that could affect cloud backups.
The problem seems to occur regardless of whether the images were synced with iCloud or stored offline on the device, reports “Heise”According to the report, manufacturers of forensic software had previously pointed out the possibility of restoring deleted iOS data under certain circumstances. And: This also applies to deleted notes, text messages and Safari browser history.
Apple itself has not yet commented on the photo bug.