I went into my boyfriend's cloud gallery and found pictures of his ex.

[josie384]

I am 24, he is 31.

My phone stopped working a few days ago so my boyfriend handed me his old phone (that he uses daily along with his new one). I went through the gallery and told him so, he agreed. In this gallery I found pictures from 2025 only. I was looking for pictures from 2024 from this trip we had to Hawaii. Then I found a cloud app. To my surprise it was with no password (He has everything encrypted, with passwords and has two phones).

I checked this cloud, I found the pictures from our trip I was looking for. I went further on this cloud here was a ton of pictures of his childhood girlfriend. Very old pictures kissing each other etc...
I felt like I wanted to vomit but then I thought everyone has a past. He talked me about his ex which they dated from 2010 til 2017 (but I found photos of them hooking up till 2020).

I said ok, those from 2010 are alright u know, you are young etc. Then I noticed he had pictures from 2019 of this woman wearing lingerie, very explicit photos and videos. And I confronted my boyfriend.

He of course said I had no business going through this cloud. I asked him why he kept those pictures, he said he didn't have time to delete them since they’re so many (from 2010, more than 40K photos). I told him to look into my eyes and tell me he didn't have them for another reason. He said he loves me and only me and that's why he took a 16 hour flight to spend 2 months with me.
I don't know what to think. I want to vomit. He never took pictures like that to me.

Like so many, naked, etc.. He said that recently he bought that cloud’s license and put all his hard drives there in that cloud but never checked photo by photo in order to delete it.
What should I do? This is my first long term relationship (we're together since 2020). And I have no clue about what's wrong, and what's right.

I use my DPs iPad constantly i have never gone snooping through his photos. If I stumbled on a naked photo of his ex I would close it not keep going.

I’m not morally against nudes between consenting adults. And wouldn’t assume that photos I had to scroll through years worth of stuff were cherished items.

if I didn’t delete it at the time I have every photo I’ve ever taken on my cloud. I’m sure there are multiple exes in there, so what? I am an adult I have existed in multiple peoples lives and there is evidence of that.

I have literally no idea what's in my cloud account. I never go in there. I remove stuff from my phone but never from my cloud. And I would never bother to in and delete photos of anyone from it, naked or not. It wouldn't even occur to me. So I think it's pretty unrealistic to suggest that the OP's partner is unusual in not having done that.

I don't have naked pictures of exes because I've never taken or received any. But there may well be explicit pictures and artwork in my cloud that I'd saved to my phone's galley at some point. I've no idea and I certainly couldn't be arsed to go into the cloud and delete them because I never go into it and I wouldn't expect anyone to go snooping through it either. The fact that that the boyfriend doesn't even have a password set up for his account suggests that he doesn't pay much attention to it either.

I’ve no idea what could be in my cloud backups (some will be linked to laptops from uni days etc!) so I don’t think there’s anything untoward about him having photos from 10 years ago.

You said in a comment that some photos were from two years ago (so 2023/2?) so then are you suggesting he’s cheated? Which is obviously a valid thing to be distressed about, but if they’re actually all from before you got together then no I don’t think he’s done anything wrong and he probably just forgot about them in the cloud.

It didn’t “happen to her”. She went snooping. Play stupid games etc

I have no idea what photos are in my cloud - no doubt some of my ex and I looking loved up, one or two of him shirtless, sent while he was working away, a couple of my later FWB looking fine as hell, showing me his tan lines.

If my DP snooped through my gallery, saw those and then interrogated me about why I hadn’t gone through my 40,000 photos to find and delete these ones I’d think he had lost his mind. But then he still has an account on his xbox in his ex’s name and I don’t give him shit about that. We all have a past. Grow up.

I’m pretty sure

a) nobody mentioned porn, I’d assumed like most of us that its just some sexy photos, not her with legs akimbo rogering herself with a giant dildo, and

b) i’d imagine the 40k includes other stuff, landscapes, screenshots, holiday snaps, ebay listing pics. He’d have to be going some to have 40k nude photos of one person.

Agree with this, particularly the 'it didn't happen to her' part. She did it to herself.
I have never gone through photos and deleted everything, but then I am old enough that most of my photos are in a box in my garage loft.
We all have pasts, don't go looking for it if you aren't going to be able accept what you find.

I disagree. There may be people out there that ‘it wouldn’t occur to’ but most people I know delete photos of their exes once the relationship ends. You don’t go erasing pictures of the sights you’ve seen on holiday together, but you tend to delete photos with / of each other.

I really don’t see how you can ‘forget’ an entire porn library of your ex. In your example, you say you have the odd explicit photo. This isn’t an odd photo here and there, there are extensive amounts.

Tech savvy? The cloud is pretty basic.

I have pics of exes because I’m not going through old pics and spending time deleting them.

I don’t even know what they are just that they are there.

If my partner doesn’t trust me with old pics, I’d say the relationship is pretty unstable.

I assume all of you talking about her snooping have multiple pictures of your exe's penis and sex videos, too, then? 🤔 Hardly the same if not.

This site has far too many AI bots atm.

@TY78910 but most people I know delete photos of their exes once the relationship ends. You don’t go erasing pictures of the sights you’ve seen on holiday together, but you tend to delete photos with / of each other.

I don’t know anyone over the age of 19 who would do this.

You snooped his phone and went into his cloud drive and got proof he had a romantic and sex life before you.

You are being extremely unreasonable expecting him to delete his past photos.

Why did you go into his cloud drive? Do you suspect he's cheating? Or are you just nosy?

I disagree. Plus there’s a difference between deleting pics off social media and your phone but the cloud is very different.

That said I think people can do what they want.

I have my ex husband on social media. My partner is in no way threatened.

OP isn’t talking about the automatic cloud back up on your phone. She’s talking about him taking physical hard drives of photos, downloading them on a device to then upload to a separate cloud application - that’s some work and you’d see snapshots of what you’re transferring as you’re doing that.

I think the age gap/experience gap is showing here. If you are uncomfortable with him having a past then perhaps this isn't the right relationship for you.

Sex videos? No. I’ve never taken one.

Pictures? Probably.

I don’t go through my cloud but there are probably some there.

It didn't happen 'to' her. She actively made it happen by snooping through his cloud account.

I'm sure most people who saw explicit pictures from a partner's previous relationship would feel a bit sick/sad, but that doesn't mean they'd be entitled to be angry with their partner about the fact that the photos existed, particularly they'd actively gone looking through old cloud folders to find them.

I never go through my cloud photos. I don’t even know what’s there. If a man had a tantrum at me over photos automatically uploaded to my Cloud that I did not think about I would think he was unhinged.

What “happened” to her? She did some pretty in depth snooping and found some old photos of his ex?

So?

He likely saved all his photos this way and didn’t go through them?

I mean I have photos like that. No intentionally. I just don’t go through old files deleting photos. I only realised I had some risque ones of an ex from 8 years ago when they popped up on my computer’s background settings slideshow.

I’d argue that deleting pictures off social media is more time consuming than doing so off your phone.

I’d personally be fine if there was an odd snap here and there, everyone has a past and that’s fine. I’d also feel different if the person had a family unit before that, because then you’re keeping family photos for your children. But if my DP had 40k photos, including nudes of his ex, I wouldn’t be thrilled at all. My DP doesn’t have those type of things and I never had to tell him not to either.

Depends how you upload them. If it’s bulk upload / bulk copy paste you won’t notice.

You are being very unfair. I have many many photos of exes from the past and I have no intention of deleting any of them ever. I am allowed a past, as is your boyfriend.

There was a recent thread talking about how many photos people have on their phones/cloud storage. Lots of people were in the tens of thousands. It would take a very dedicated person to go through them all, label them, delete old ones, etc. I know I wouldn't bother, and therefore, I wouldn't expect anyone else to bother. If it was in the past, that's fine.