Here’s Why Deleted Photos From Your IPhone Came Back
The release of iOS 17.5 brought with it a somewhat troubling bug, as many users reported old, deleted photos reappearing , some reappearing more than a decade after they were deleted. Although Apple fixed this bug in iOS 17.5.1 , many are still curious to know what caused the problem in the first place.
While there were rumors that this could be due to problems with iCloud photo backups, Apple confirmed to 9to5Mac that the problem did not originate in iCloud. Instead, the tech company says the photos were caused by a corrupted database entry that existed in the file systems of the affected phones.
But how does this work, especially since many of us aren’t using the same devices we were more than five years ago? Apple says the issue may have migrated to newer devices through device-to-device transfers, restoring from an iCloud backup, or restoring from a backup on the device itself.
To better understand the issue and how it was fixed, security researchers at Synactiv took a deeper look at the issue by reverse engineering the iOS 17.5.1 update to see what had changed. According to their report, iOS 17.5 adds a migration routine that scans and re-imports photos from the file system. Apple removed this procedure in the iOS 17.5.1 update because it appears to be what causes old files to be re-indexed on the local file system and moved back to active photo galleries.
Synactiv told The Verge that the photos appeared to be on affected file systems and that “based on the code” they were picked up by the migration process. Unfortunately, security researchers say there’s really no way to infer how the photos remained on file systems in the first place.
Another possible cause that Synactiv pointed out was a Reddit comment that noted that sometimes your device saves files to both the Files app and the Photos app. So, if you deleted images only in the Photos app, they will still remain on your device and will be stored in files.
Unfortunately, it’s impossible to say for sure whether the problem comes down to the image being saved in two places or to Apple’s explanation of a “corrupt database entry.” The problem is now resolved if you update to iOS 17.5.1. If you were one of the few people who reappeared with old photos, you’ll have to delete the photos yourself because the update won’t automatically delete them.