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.

Look I get that you're upset. And I totally get that he probably intended to delete the photos in order to appease you, but then just didn't get around to it (and really, who could be arsed to do that).

Clearly, his ex was a huge part of his life and he was heartbroken when they split. Even if he physically deleted her photos, it won't change anything. He will always have thousands of memories of her in the back of his mind and there's no way to delete those.

My DH has several photo albums, which contain photographs of him with various previous girlfriends. There is no way I would expect him to destroy them, they are part of his history; what right would I have to demand he deleted his history because I don't like it?

"yeah I remember once he told me if it made me unconfortable that he had those pictures (he showed me some when we started dating) I said yes and he said he was going to use a facial recognition tool in order to delete them. This was 2 years ago."

So he is changing his story?

I wonder how he would feel in the reverse situation? I don't think it has anything to do with age. You're not childish to not like your boyfriend having tons of sexual pictures and videos of a ex girlfriend who he seems hung up on by your other comments. Who said he was going to delete them but didn't. If it was a simple oh I forgot about those few pictures then I think it would be a non issue. But it does bother you hence asking strangers on the Internet. It would bother me too op. It's not a relationship I would want. Being a long distance relationship as well I'd find it hard to trust him. When he didn't do something he said he would.

Thanks for your words. Yes, I asked him about this too. He said he did delete the pictures with this face recognition tool but on his personal computer. So the hard drive still have all these photos, and this new ente cloud he bought too.

I don´t know what to think really. Yeah everyone has a past (all experiences, including romantic ones makes us who we are and I respect that).

But since we first met in person he said he absolutely was into me and was over his ex. Then all this stuff appears, pictures, contacts, new year wishes, and I don´t know what to think.

I do believe he loves me, otherwise he wouldn´t travel this far, pay my ticket when I go to australia. I feel very loved by him, gifts, trips, etc... But still I have a gut feeling that he´s not over this woman.

But we´ve talked, he´s very open to talk about everything. He says the past is the past. I admit I have an issue with trust. Having a long distance relationship is something I absolutely not recomment to anyone.

I need to be more mature, talked with older women, the´ve said to me it´s normal everything that makes me feel odd. The photos, the messages, it´s all nromal an that´s how man work.

I hope to find peace, because I know I´m a very big part of the problem here. Maybe another woman wouldnt care about her boyfriend having intimate videos with his ex on his current phone, photos, emails, etc, but I do and maybe when I become older I won´t care anymore.

Please don’t let these women gaslight you OP.

How should I view this situation in your opinion? Or what should I do? Like I´ve think about breaking up sometimes. But I´m very, very emotionally dependent to this man. I´ve met him since I was 19.

I'd be catching a 16 hour flight straight back home that wasn't incidnþalyou did a bloody deep dive...not cool.

Oh dear. Well I know how you feel because I had same issue and had his ex keep popping up when we shared our photo feeds on Google, but as he says it's kind of a nightmare because even though he deleted them it still synched off another drive backup. It's really hard. But you're being a bit dramatic.

oki, thanks.

The important thing here OP is that the situation has upset you, and your feelings are valid whether people agree or not.

Throughout your updates, a lot more has surfaced, which validates why this has upset you the way that it did.

Whilst this is a long distance relationship, it sounds like it has been a longer term one and it’s clear that you don’t want to just leave. You should sit down together and just have an honest conversation. Tell him about all the reasons why you feel insecure about this woman, and tell him why you find these explicit photos and thousands of photos of them together hurtful. You’ve already had the conversation about you finding them disrespectful, and he told you that he was going to get rid of them, so ask why he didn’t? And if he says he just forgot, then give him the benefit of the doubt here, but ask him what he’s going to do to fix this.

If you feel that he is genuine, and he takes the steps to respect your boundaries then you’re going to have to let it go. Unless he gives you other genuine reasons to be suspicious, then you can’t continue looking for things, not trusting him, because this will ruin your relationship.

If for some reason he feels that he wants to go back on his word, and not sort through those photos, then I think you really need to ask yourself if you’re prepared to just live with that, or if that shows you that he’s not taking your feelings on board.

If that’s how he generally backs up his stuff it’s normal. I back my phone and computer and all contents onto a an external hard drive and cloud.

my old phone accesses my cloud

By on earth is it anything to do with you what your boyfriend did before he met you, or thst he's still got photos from his past? Is he supposed to just erase his past and his memories because he's with you now? Digital photos didn't exist when I met my husband, but I've still got a few photos of a previous fiancé and I will continue to keep them - he was a nice man and is part of my past. You really shouldn't have gone snooping through your boyfriend's photos - it's a gross invasion of his privacy.

But he also showed them to her 2 years ago and said he would delete them? None of it makes sense

Are those photos of your ex with his penis in his hand?

Would you be okay with your current husband holding on to various photos of his ex with her boobs and vagina out? OP has written updates where she said they were very explicit.

Selfie in front of the colosseum is one thing, bending over nude is another.

FOR FIVE YEARS?!? Girl….

if you don’t like it you can just break up
with him. It’s YOUR personal boundary, what we or anyone else think is reasonable
is is irrelevant. It only matters what you want to put up with.

I don’t think feeling this insecure or worried for such a long distance relationship is worth it.
him paying for things isn’t a reflection of his love or your worth.

It's reads as if you perhaps have a power imbalance in your relationship. You was 19 and he was 27 when you met? It reads as if you don’t feel empowered in your relationship to state your own boundaries and are looking for older people's advice. Are their other red flags you might not be seeing with this relationship? It doesn't read to me a you issue op it's your partner not being straightforward and honest.

Unfortunately there seem to be a lot of posters who want to condemn you for having a issue with your partners past holiday snaps when that's clearly not the case. I genuinely don't believe anyone on here would be comfortable with their partners having a ton of explicit images and videos of their exes.

I have photos from the last 30 years of my life on my laptops and cloud! That includes exes and friends I no longer see… totally normal.
Some of my exes were incredibly important to me and I’m not going to wipe off photos just because we’re no longer together.

yeah I saw some of those photos when we started dating. Not the explicit ones of course

@TY78910 No they weren't - you wouldn't have been able to get intimate photos printed easily in those days. But it wouldn't bother me if my husband had candid photos of a previous girlfriend so long as they were taken before he met me. Mind you, if he did have photos from those days, the other women would be old biddies like me now 😆😆

I’ve definitely got old photos of my ex lurking somewhere in my cloud. I’ll delete things if I come across them, but I cba going through thousands of photos to hunt down any strays.

My husband has had the same iCloud since it was a thing, so he’d definitely have pics of ex’s knocking about in there.

I don’t think it’s as deep and sentimental as you’re thinking.

this.
I am not huge on photos but I have got 37,000 stored in my cloud. I seriously have no idea what is on there.

What's the likelihood they are sexual videos and lots of sexual photos? Would you delete if your partner felt upset by them? Would you mind if they had sexual videos and lots of sexual photos of an ex and didn't want to delete them after saying they would?

Hahaha! That is a great point though, because the woman OPs boyfriend kept is likely in her 20s/30s so likely to still look like this and she is within his reach.

On a separate note, its fascinating how most women on MN think that porn is the devil's work, but they're entirely comfortable with ex-girlfriend's nudes on boyfriend's devices!