Apple released the iOS 17.5.1 update earlier this week, fixing a bug–a potentially embarrassing one–that would suddenly recover photos that were deleted long ago. The fix comes as a relief to many, but users who put more thought into are left wondering, was the bug within iOS on the iPhone, or was it an iCloud issue? And if it was iCloud, what the heck Apple–why are you holding on to photos deleted long after the 30-day waiting period? Is Apple secretly keeping our photos for nefarious reasons (dun dun duuun!)?
According to reports, iCloud has nothing to do with the bug. 9to5Mac confirmed with Apple that the photos were only stored locally on the device and not synced to iCloud Photos. Instead, those “files could have persisted from one device to another when restoring from a backup, performing a device-to-device transfer, or when restoring from an iCloud Backup.”
As for a Reddit post that claimed that the recovered photos appear on a iPad that was sold to another person, Apple told 9to5Mac that claim is false—it couldn’t happen if the seller had completed erased the iPad via Settings > General > Transfer or Reset > Erase All Content and Settings. This permanently deletes all data on the device and reinstalls the operating system. That Reddit post has since been deleted so it appears as though it was either fabricated or the poster was misinformed.
In case you don’t want to take Apple’s word for it, a third party security researcher has confirmed that iCloud Photos wasn’t involved in the bug. SynAcktiv took the iOS 17.5.1 update and through some reverse engineering found that the problem was indeed an on-device issue, not one with iCloud Photos. According to SynAcktiv’s report, “the photos that reappeared were still lying around on the filesystem and that they were just found by the migration routine added in iOS 17.5.”
It’s not iCloud Photos, that’s good to know. The question remains, why are those photos still on the device long after they were deleted? Apple won’t get into specifics but blamed “database corruption” in the iOS 17.5.1 release notes. Generally, when you delete a file on a computer, the file isn’t actually erased. The OS marks the areas as available for file storage, so the file stays there until it is overwritten. This could have something to do with the bug.
However, SynAcktiv refers to a Reddit post that cites an unnamed Apple source who claims the issue involves photos that were saved to the Files app. SynAcktiv could not confirm that claim but concluded it was “plausible.” In any case, the issue is fixed with the 17.5.1 update.
Author: Roman Loyola, Senior Editor, Macworld
Roman is a Macworld Senior Editor with over 30 years of experience covering the tech industry, focusing on the Mac and other products in the Apple ecosystem. He is also the host of the Macworld Podcast. His career started at MacUser, where he received Apple certification as a repair technician (when Apple did that kind of thing). He's also worked for MacAddict, MacLife, and TechTV.