iPhone updated - where are all my photos?

[autumnredhead]

My phone has recently updated. I've gone from having 10,000 pics to 366. Where have all my photos gone?

I'm not techy but I've searched google and made sure my Apple iCloud photo option is switched on. I will speak to Apple as soon as I can.

But can anyone help? I was only looking through my pics last night so I know I've not deleted them. X

Thanks @funinthesun19 - I hope I get them back as they do mean a lot x

@Osirus - yes it automatically should update

Really hope you can recover them OP, this is always a writer of mine.
I'm in Greece at the mo so will do my update when i get home

I just googled it and it's to do with Adobe's recent 5.4 Lightroom IOS update having a major bug in it.

If it says it's backed up, then it should be on the cloud if that's where its backing up to. The fact that you don't have the photos there suggests that either the location of the back up is different, or they haven't been backed up at all.

I don't have an iPhone, it's a very expensive waste of money quite frankly, but that's generally how back ups work. If other people have had similar issues, and have gotten around it by backing up to other places, I'd guess apple have been lying to you and your photos are gone. Hopefully not though, maybe they are saved elsewhere.

LadyEloise I just saw that too, but isn’t that to do with photos stored on that particular app? The op has lost lots of photos from her camera roll after updating her phone.

My phone keeps flashing an iOS update but after reading this I'm really reluctant.

Just backed mine onto my Amazon prime.

Fingers crossed you get some help from apple with this Op.

Hi op, haven't RTFT but my phone did this when I changed phones last month, I had 12k of them. They gradually came back after a couple of days, was so strange. Hopefully yours does the same! Nothing worse than losing photos.

They come back. The first time this happened to me I freaked but I'm over it now! It just takes a little time for them to appear again.

Morning all. We've arrived in Greece and I'm happily taking lots more photos!

GOOD NEWS! As my daughter was playing in her iPad on the flight yesterday. She was looking at some photos and as I glanced over I could see all my photos were on there!!! Every single one. I was SO HAPPY! We sat looking though them and laughing at memories and looking at previous holidays we've been on. I'm printed my faves off and getting them in an album as soon as I get back!

No sign of them appearing back on my phone though.

Aw fantastic news OP! At least they’re all there on the iPad. Good idea about getting them printed off.
Keep checking your phone every so often because as a couple of pp on here have said, they might come back.
Have a lovely holiday!

@funinthesun19 - yes I will keep checking! We're having the best time.

Maybe a good idea not to update or sync your iPad in case it syncs the "wrong way" I.e. to match your iPhone.

There is an app call Phototransfer for the iPhone / iPad which allows you to selectively copy between one and the other in both directions and also to a PC or Mac and is independent of iTunes or similar. I've been using it for years and it's really good.

Ugh, I’m so jealous!
It looks so beautiful where you are. It’s lovely and grey back here.

Someone contradicted me on this thread but I definitely read in some newspaper that some iphone users were distraught/gutted to have lost their photos permanently because of a flaw in an update. Apple said the photos couldn't be retrieved.
I'm glad you have them on an ipad. Do print off the ones you love asap.

Can someone signpost any good ways to keep iPhone and iPad pix backed up elsewhere?

Can you get anything that will plug in and suck out?

Or good places to store online somewhere

I back up phone to cloud regularly, but not iPad (it's mine, but linked originally to DH's phone, and I'd prefer my pix somewhere other than his cloud!)

Apple limit how many photos can be synced at a time. If they’re still on your iPad then they’ll turn up eventually.

Something similar happened to me years ago when my iPhone updated.. apart from all of my photos doubled so I had two of every photo and video.. I left it like it for a couple of months because I was worried about deleting them but in the end I deleted one of each photo and video because it was annoying and then when I clicked back on my photos everything had gone! I was absolutely gutted years of memories just vanished and I never got them back! I'm so scared now about my phone updating, it's been flashing up that there's a new update for a few days, I'm gonna turn off the automatic update!

Not helpful for now. But anyone who is already paying for Microsoft 365, it comes with 1tb of cloud storage with OneDrive. I have my phone set up to back my photos up to this and it is very reliable and independant of Google/Apple. You can view your photos through a browser from anywhere, or you can store them on the app. I've had several phones/tablets/cameras over the years. But all my photos are still there in one place.

Someone contradicted me on this thread but I definitely read in some newspaper that some iphone users were distraught/gutted to have lost their photos permanently because of a flaw in an update. Apple said the photos couldn't be retrieved.

Sorry, that was me. I hope I didn’t come across as rude. I just thought the update mentioned in the news was regarding one particular app. Still scary anyway!

Still no pics returning to my phone, maybe it's because I'm abroad. Thanks for all the tips. I just need to get my act together and print them and put them in an album, that's the best way to look at them anyway. I would have been recasted if they were not on the iPad and I realised how much I would have missed them when I was looking through them on the iPad, it's crazy how much she has changed even from a few years ago xx

*devastated

I’m in the middle of printing all of my photos OP. It’s taking a while because I do chunks each month due to the cost and there being that many of them! But I’m getting there.

FreePrints is a fantastic App to use if you’re going to do them online. You get 45 free prints each month too which is good too. Otherwise, Boots do the photo machines where you just plug your device in to the machine and all of your photos come up on to the screen and you can select the ones you want to print off. They’re much easier than the machines at Max Spielmann where you have to use WiFi to send them across to their machines.

Also, Google Photos is great for backing them all up. I know I mentioned it before upthread but honestly I can’t recommend it enough. It just gives you that extra peace of mind. And if you’re on Facebook you can always upload them on to private albums on there as an extra back up.

Thanks so much @funinthesun19 - yes I will have to do it In chunks due to time and cost. I will look at google photos as soon as I am back and will take advantage of the free prints per month. I'm so so glad I still have my pics. Years of birthdays, Christmas, newborn family members and holidays - all so precious x