Featured Image Credit: Matt Cardy/Getty Images / Getty Stock Images
Topics: Apple, Technology, Social Media, iPhone
Niamh Shackleton
Topics: Apple, Technology, Social Media, iPhone
If your worst nightmare is having all your old photos resurface on your phone, then you might not want to get the new iOS update.
Apple's 17.5 iOS update was released on Monday (May 13), just a couple of months after the release of 17.4 - and it seems to have come with an unexpected feature.
According to some iPhone users, iOS 17.5 is bringing back old photos that they thought were long gone off their devices.
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Chatting on an iOS-dedicated Reddit thread, one person penned in recent days: "Latest iOS update has brought back some pictures I deleted in 2021."
They went on: "Just completed the update. When in conversation with my partner, I went to send a picture and saw that the latest pictures were nsfw material we’d made years ago when we were living apart (covid etc). But WTF.
"It was permanently deleted. Years ago but magically it’s back?"
The Redditor said the whole situation made them feel 'so uncomfortable' and 'uneasy'.
"Same here. I have four pics from 2010 that keep reappearing as the latest pics uploaded to iCloud," one person replied. "I have deleted them repeatedly."
Someone else added: "Same thing happened to me. Six photos from different times all I have deleted. Some I had deleted in 2023."
"I don’t think our data is ever truly deleted," questioned another, and a lot of other people are thinking the same thing.
One person wrote on X: "Wait, does that mean Apple keeps all my deleted photos, even after 30 days?"
"Lmao so much for privacy," a different person penned.
A third echoed similar sentiments, writing: "Does this mean @Apple may have kept all my photos from all time, even though I’ve asked for them to be deleted?"
Despite reports of photos coming back, Apple's website states that deleted photos are wiped from your device in 30 days.
"When you delete photos and videos, they're sent to your Recently Deleted album for 30 days. After 30 days, they'll be deleted permanently," the company says.
Elsewhere it says that once a photo is deleted from your Recently Deleted folder 'you can't get it back'.
UNILAD has contacted Apple for comment on the matter.
The resurfaced photo issue comes after some iPhone users recently reported that their alarms were no longer working.
Dozens of people took to TikTok to air their grievances, with Apple later addressing the matter and saying that it was 'working on a fix'.