Icloud

[Cakethrow]

Just had my iPhone 5 repaired and apple have wiped everything.
Fine, I was expecting this.

However, I now understand that my photostream which is on iCloud has a shelf life of 30 days.

If this is true, I've lost every single photo between when I got the phone and now as I don't own a computer and haven't backed any of it up :(

The worst part is, my son was born in January and all the photos of his birth etc were on there. :(

Please someone tell me I can retrieve my photos and tell me how!

Have you tried it? IME it doesn't start deleting photos from photostream until you reach 1000, then the oldest go first. Does your photostream link to any other device?

I really hope you get them back :(

Sorry, you already answered the second question.

Phone has never been synced with iTunes so looks like they're completely lost :(

Anyone know how the police recover stuff when it's been deleted?

What's on your phone now? Presumably nothing if they've given you a replacement phone. What about contacts etc?

If you're absolutely sure that your photos aren't on your phone and there's nothing else that you're bothered about, try restoring the phone to factory settings. Then you'll have to set it up as if it was new. It'll ask you if you want to restore from an iCloud back up. Depends if you've done an iCloud back up since you got the phone

Also, have you checked that photo steam is turned on on your phone?

Sorry, you've probably done all the above...

My photostream still has photos from at least 18 months ago, so if you follow Gwendoline's advice there's a good chance you'll get them back. My iPhone 5 is set to automatically upload new photos to iCloud when it's connected to wifi, and I'm pretty sure I didn't change that setting, so it's probably the default.

I don't understand this photostream business either & have never made albums out of my photos so am worried the same thing may have happened to me! Stress!!

Personally I'd go back to the Apple shop and ask them for their help on this one - I wouldn't want to risk re-setting the phone in case I made anything worse!

I'd also ask their advice for how to back your phone up, if you haven't got a computer, so that you don't risk this happening again

Really hope that you retrieve your photos

Thanks everyone. I think the apple shop is probably the best advice. I'll gladly pay a princely sum for those photos (which I've no doubt they'll charge!)
When I got the phone back it drew down 450 photos from iCloud so they must've been on there but when I log in on the Internet on a laptop it's not showing anything (not even sure if it should?)
My phone was definitely set to save them automatically and I did an update to make sure before I gave them the phone :(

So they are on your phone? They won't appear on a random laptop because it won't be set up for your photostream. I'm a bit confused now, but yes, AS will help you.