iPhone SE (2016) Any possible way to retrieve deleted photos?

[msintros]

So I clicked the iCloud Photo Library into the "off" position on my phone and without warning instantly over 300 photos disappeared from my phone. They are not on my iCloud storage either.

I just spent some time in chat with Apple support and they are going to call me back tomorrow but the answer is they're probably gone forever.

Are there ANY possibilities to retrieve this stuff? I am having a hard time accepting that clicking one wrong button that doesn't even give you a warning at all that if you press this it's going to delete everything can make this happen and that there's no way back.

 

[krazirob]

And that’s why I stay away from the cloud. I keep my libraries synced across a few computers so if one library takes crap I have another on a different computer to do a restore.

 

[msintros]

I'm pretty furious about this. 1. I am missing about 100 photos from a trip I took this last summer that are now probably gone for good, irreplaceable 2. All I did was click off the button that indicates uploading to iCloud. Nowhere does this indicate that it will delete everything that's on iCloud 3. my phone says that it should still be keeping reduced versions of those photos on the phone to optimize space but that has turned out not to be true at all.

Logging into iCloud from my computer there is literally nothing there, not even my contacts. I didn't touch any settings related to that. On support chat, the rep tried to explain to me why all of this occurred but his explanation made zero sense. He said that iCloud is like a mirror and that if you turn it off then the originals disappear?? Who the hell designed this "back-up" system that destroys the original copies if the back-up is destroyed? That's actually less secure than if you had no backup at all, because you've doubled the amount of faults that will be fatal to the existence of the data!!

Regardless of whether they get my photos back, I'm going to the cell phone store on Monday and getting an Android phone again. Back when I had that, I had zero problems. No idiotic cloud system, I could easily back up my photos and files by simply dragging them in the Finder to a folder of my choosing, which apparently I can't even do on a Mac anymore. The reason I turned iCloud update off in the first place was because it wasn't showing me anything on my phone after 2017 in my iPhoto. I read that this might be because it was attempting to upload those photos to iCloud and thus iPhoto wouldn't show them, so I attempted to turn iCloud upload off to eliminate that conflict and poof, 75% of my photos disappear with one click of a button.

 

[krazirob]

I'm pretty furious about this. 1. I am missing about 100 photos from a trip I took this last summer that are now probably gone for good, irreplaceable 2. All I did was click off the button that indicates uploading to iCloud. Nowhere does this indicate that it will delete everything that's on iCloud 3. my phone says that it should still be keeping reduced versions of those photos on the phone to optimize space but that has turned out not to be true at all.

Logging into iCloud from my computer there is literally nothing there, not even my contacts. I didn't touch any settings related to that. On support chat, the rep tried to explain to me why all of this occurred but his explanation made zero sense. He said that iCloud is like a mirror and that if you turn it off then the originals disappear?? Who the hell designed this "back-up" system that destroys the original copies if the back-up is destroyed? That's actually less secure than if you had no backup at all, because you've doubled the amount of faults that will be fatal to the existence of the data!!

Regardless of whether they get my photos back, I'm going to the cell phone store on Monday and getting an Android phone again. Back when I had that, I had zero problems. No idiotic cloud system, I could easily back up my photos and files by simply dragging them in the Finder to a folder of my choosing, which apparently I can't even do on a Mac anymore. The reason I turned iCloud update off in the first place was because it wasn't showing me anything on my phone after 2017 in my iPhoto. I read that this might be because it was attempting to upload those photos to iCloud and thus iPhoto wouldn't show them, so I attempted to turn iCloud upload off to eliminate that conflict and poof, 75% of my photos disappear with one click of a button.

Seems the problem is someone didn’t explain the Apple “iCloud” properly to you so you thought you had an actual backup when indeed it’s like a mirror. Sucks to hear and I feel your pain as I learned the hard way myself once.

iCloud isn’t a true backup in a sense because once you turn off the iCloud then boom it’s all gone. With an actual backup via time machine then you don’t have to worry about settings. You delete something then no biggie. You just restore from time machine.

Enjoy your android though. Sorry for your situation.

 

[msintros]

That's really just awful design though, I don't care how anyone spins it. Regardless of whether the intent is to back up your data or provide you with a way of accessing it on multiple devices, the fact that if you turn it off, it disappears everywhere just does not make logical sense in any possible way. How is that advantageous at all? Seriously.

 

[sean000]

That's really just awful design though, I don't care how anyone spins it. Regardless of whether the intent is to back up your data or provide you with a way of accessing it on multiple devices, the fact that if you turn it off, it disappears everywhere just does not make logical sense in any possible way. How is that advantageous at all? Seriously.

I agree. I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again: Apple sucks at cloud computing. They are way behind the likes of Google and even Microsoft in this regard. What happened to you never should have happened. The BS about optimizing device storage is Apple’s attempt to fix the fact that they have always short changed people on device storage... especially considering they don’t offer a removeable media option. They have no business charging a rediculous premium for 128 or 256 GB when they don’t offer a tiny card slot. I get that they want to maintain water tightness, but good grief most of us have zero need for a waterproof smartphone.

Anyway... I will say that cloud computing is amazingly convenient, but I wouldn’t rely on just one. Google photos, Onedrive, and Dropbox can all auto backup your photos and videos. You might have to pay a small fee to up your cloud storage. Or you can also backup to another device.

 

[msintros]

Honestly I prefer to keep backup in my own hands. I actually had no clue that my phone was even using iCloud - I thought I had told it specifically not to back when I set it up, but apparently that wasn't the case. The fact that you can't easily see which files are on the cloud and which are not makes it even worse. It appeared to me that all the photos I had were in my phone, but as soon as I turned of iCloud most of them vanished, so obviously they were not there, or at least that's the only way I can think to explain it. Again, that's just terrible design.

I had recently started thinking about going in for a cloud storage service to back up my ordinary files in addition to all the hard drives I keep just in case, but now I'm rethinking that after this experience.

 

[sean000]

Honestly I prefer to keep backup in my own hands. I actually had no clue that my phone was even using iCloud - I thought I had told it specifically not to back when I set it up, but apparently that wasn't the case. The fact that you can't easily see which files are on the cloud and which are not makes it even worse. It appeared to me that all the photos I had were in my phone, but as soon as I turned of iCloud most of them vanished, so obviously they were not there, or at least that's the only way I can think to explain it. Again, that's just terrible design.

I had recently started thinking about going in for a cloud storage service to back up my ordinary files in addition to all the hard drives I keep just in case, but now I'm rethinking that after this experience.

Performing your own backups is nice because you know exactly what you’ve got and where you’ve got it. However it takes discipline to maintain regular backups with copies stored off site. That’s why I like to use a combo of local and cloud backup. What I dislike about Apple iCloud backups and sync is that it requires faith. They do not give us a way to verify what files are where, and they never tell exactly what is going on. Having at least a log file would be nice. I’m speaking about backups in general. At least with photos you can see what photos are in iCloud or synced to other devices (but they may not be the full size originals if those devices are set to optimize local storage). I have iCloud set to auto download photos and videos to my Windows machine. From there I import them into Lightroom and back them up to my external drives.

 

[Newtons Apple]

I use the cloud daily for back up but ALWAYS back my X up via iTunes one a week. Only takes a few minutes and the data is secure.

 

[Small White Car]

Do you have iCloud backups for the phone turned on? You can try wiping the phone and restoring from iCloud and see if there is still a backup in there that pre-dates what you did.

Probably a long shot but I'd try it if I were you.

 

[jav6454]

If you deleted it and you somehow made a back-up to your traditional backing up solution. Then, they are gone for good.

 

[ZEEN0j]

Of course iCloud syncing acts as a backup. Why this happened to you I don’t know. But everything is stored on iCloud even if you disable iCloud on your phone. When you disable something it asks you if you want to keep or delete them from your phone (not iCloud). It never touches the stored data on iCloud doing this. If you flip the switch for contacts again then everything will come back. Same with photos.

My guess is your data never actually got sent to iCloud in the first place. Only other possibility is you stumbled upon a bug. As it’s not designed that way at all.

 

[GalaDaliGirl]

iTunes and iCloud are the most horrid, bug ridden and confusing pieces of hot steaming pile ever designed.

It blows my mind that managing my Blackberry pearl music and pics was easier.

Thank you for the warning. I recently turned on iCloud and now I know to do a drag and drop before I turn it off.

iTunes and iCloud are an embarrassment for Apple. I always wonder to myself when will they fix it? Why is it such garbage after all these years?

My God Tim, fire the people that makes these apps. Please.

They are both equally wretchedly stupid.

 

[akash.nu]

It’s not Apple’s fault if people don’t learn how things work and do whatever they feel like.