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Gmrose725
User level: Level 1 (5 points)

Thousands of iPhone pictures missing

I noticed the other day on my phone that i have many photo albums that are showing up as empty. I went into the library and see that there are likely thousands of pictures that just don't exist anymore. I have an iPhone 16 Pro Max, running iOS26.6.

After spending over an hour on the phone, with a 2nd level support person, checking all my devices and the icloud.com account I was told stuff like this happens sometime and there is nothing that could be done. I have a 2T storage plan with plenty of spare space as well as over 85G of internal sorrage available.

The only advice for the future was to not consider the the cloud as a backup for your information, but a way to share information among your devices. If i want secure backup I should buy an external hard drive.

I asked if she could escalate the call further, to see if someone could find out what happened so I could insure it never happened again, and she said no. Nobody would be able to give me better information

I am still shocked by that response.

Any other suggestions?

Posted on Sep 18, 2026 8:02 AM

2 replies

Mac Jim ID
User level: Level 10 (105,996 points)

Sep 18, 2026 8:20 AM in response to Gmrose725

Yes, photos stored in iCloud should be backed up to an external hard drive or even with a computer. iCloud is a syncing service as opposed to Backup service.


iCloud storage is volatile for many reasons including these, although we would have no idea what happened to your photos.

  • Any other device using the same Apple Account can delete the photos where they will also be removed from your device and iCloud.
  • Anyone with your Password that can access iCloud online can delete the photos there where they will also be deleted from your device.
  • Photos accidentally deleted from a device are only recoverable for 30 days and after that they are gone for good. A backup would have archived those photos on the backup date whether that is longer than 30 days or not.
  • Of course there is the possibility of server corruption on Apple's end, although it is extremely rare.

Originally posted at discussions.apple.com/thread/256359799