Would an iPhone display an ex’s photo album on the Home screen?

[CelticCrow]

Might also post this in the Technology forum part. Looking for IPhone users to advise me.

Been dating a man for just over a year. We split up twice already earlier in the year as I found out he was looking up his ex girlfriend in Scotland. Pretty constantly. As in, almost every night. I snooped on his phone because we weren't having sex, it had become very sporadic at best, and he was behaving shifty with his phone.

Call it female intuition. I don't know. But what I found confirmed it. Every night I wasn't with him, sometimes just after I'd driven home, he was on her FB page and Googling her. So 4 or 5 nights of the week. Early in our relationship, after we'd agreed not to see other people, after he told me he loved me and asked me to live with him.

I had it out with him around May time and he said he was just curious about her. She has a certain look that I know he is really into but I don't. She is around 15 years older than me. I'm 58. He is 69. I forgave him. Moved on.

Earlier today he gave me his phone to send an email for him. He is dyslexic so really struggles with officialdom. On his Home screen on his iphone was a picture of her in the top right hand corner. I said what is your ex doing on your new phone. He only got the phone in June and told me he had deleted all the photos from the old Samsung, which I had even checked and cleaned as I sold it on EBay for him.

I tapped on the photo and it opened an entire album of her photos, around 30 at a glance, and the album dated June 2020. He said he didn't know how to delete them. Then added had I ever been to Scotland as it's really stunning.

I'm out shopping and due to talk to him later this evening. We're meant to be having dinner together. I need to get my facts straight.

Where did the photos come from if they weren't on his old phone originally? By the way, a most important fact, it ended in 2021. He has been single before meeting me in 2025.

If you are accessing an album on an iphone either recently or regularly, would the album and/or images appear on your Home screen? I've never noticed this before when helping him with stuff on the new phone.

Sounds clear as mud 🤣 Hope someone can help me.

Oh and actually, I used to see photos of his three grandchildren pop up in the top right. All recently taken or accessed.

Also noticed in his WhatsApp a number not saved in the Contacts saying "Hello how are you? "

Smelling more and more like a rat.

It seems a little far-fetched to me that someone who doesn’t know how to delete photos would know how to have migrated them from the Android cloud ecosystem to the Apple cloud ecosystem.

Yes, all your photos from previous phones copy over to the new phone because they are all on the cloud, unless you choose not to migrate them. You certainly can’t really choose grandchildren but not ex unless you do it photo by photo (and no one does that).

To be fair, I have photos of ex’s on my social media and I’ve been with Dh for 18 years! I don’t look at them, but they are my photos from my life and there’s no reason to delete them.

I think the question is whether he is too hung up on his ex and/or you are too insecure for this to work.

You have already split twice from him. Why do you keep going back? Is any man better than no man?

My iPhone does this with my Google drive/cloud photos. BUT I have told Google not to feature my ex in photos it shoes me randomly (I haven’t deleted all the photos because he’s the father of my kids, not because I’m pining over him). Ther is something in the settings where u can say “don’t show me This person”

You’ve been together a year split twice you’re snooping on his phone. Respect yourself and walk way

My iPhone and tablet regularly show me photo memories of really random photos from years ago in a widget on my home screen

Sounds like he's added a widget to his Home Screen and selected a Smart Stack (album of photos). You can only do this of course if the photos exist on the phone to start with.

My iPhone shows random photos like this.

So very easy to delete photos though. That’s the fishy part.

What is the issue? Why can’t he have photos of his ex that predate the end of his relationship with her and also are years before you met him? How long were they together? Did they raise children together?

I think you’re focusing on the wrong issue here. If he did it by accident are you still going to stay with someone who isn’t over their ex? Someone who obsesses over their photos whenever you’re apart. You’re distracting yourself with a technology question but he’s just not that into you. Ditch him and find someone who respects you.

My iPhone keeps regenerating memories of my ex husband which is like a slide show with music. It will just pop up on my Home Screen on a random day. I do go in and delete the memories slide show it generates every time, but it keeps regenerating new ones. I haven’t deleted the photos from my camera roll because he was the father of our kids and most of the 30yr marriage was good.

I can’t get my iPhone to do this, but then I refuse to have a google account. Every time it regenerates a new memories thing, I delete it but then the software decides it should redo it.

Where in the settings did you find this? I went into photos, collections and deleted the memories of x every time.

It’s somewhere in his iCloud. He’s either had an iPhone in 2020 or an iPad / Mac. The photos are from 2020, that’s 6 years ago - I would not be having a “chat” about that. There’s nothing to talk about. He deleted photos from his Samsung - didn’t realise there were some in the cloud, it’s not an offence to have a past.

The past stuff - sure iffy. But if you moved on from that then leave it be.

You are regularly snooping on his phone. Just end the relationship

in your photos app, find a photo with a particular person, swipe up on it and it comes up with a little circle of that person - tap on it and give it a name. Give your phone some time but it’ll index all photos with this person under that name. Handy when you want to just use the search option to find all photos of that person to look back on (I do this with kids, DH, family in general, even pets) but if for some reason you want to delete all photos of said person, then search for their name in your photos app, select them all and delete.

You’ve split twice, he’s pining for his ex, you’re combing through his phone, you weirdly think her being 15 years older than you is relevant. This sounds dead in the water.

iPhones do show random photos and everything can be save to iCloud. You said the old phone was completely wiped though and the old phone was a Samsung. Samsung and Apple don’t use the same ‘cloud’ so for him to have all those photos he’d have to save them from the old phone to his new phone. His new phone wouldn’t link to his old one because one was Samsung and one is Apple.

I also would split with him, you’ve been together just over a year and already split twice!! You obviously don’t trust him, save yourself the hassle and move on

My feeling exactly. He's a bit of a technophobe. He told me his daughter copied everything from his old Samsung onto the new iPhone.

It's certainly no offence to have a past. The problem is, he was with her for one year if that. Long distance. The first 6 months of us dating, he brought her up in any way he could in conversation. We were barely having sex at all and he kept going on about her lovely long curly hair, how he used to brush it and how they used to share a jacuzzi bath together, so many very personal references to her that I had to tell him to stop.

Then I started getting suspicious. Hence looked through his old phone and he appeared to be obsessed with her. We had a discussion and he said she meant nothing, he would stop, but he didn't. I let it go and then saw her photo appear today and got really pissed off.

We had a chat about it earlier. He said yes, he had been looking through her photos again recently. He looked really sad but also guilty.

I told him he's free to try again with her, I won't get in his way or make a fuss, I just want to be desired and respected and not play second fiddle.

He insisted that I am the only person for him but that he looks through her photos only because he can't decide whether to delete them or not.

My phone does show random photos from phones of yore. I get free cloud storage for photos with Amazon prime. So it randomly pops up with memory from March 2019 type stuff. I am not tech savvy so wouldn’t know how to stop it unless I looked it up but it doesn’t bother me.

Oh and earlier today when she first popped up he said he had no idea how to delete them.

Tonight he says he keeps wondering whether to delete them, which is why he keeps looking at her.... But now he has deleted her.

Not having an iPhone I have no idea. Windows and Android I am very used to. So thank you.

.... Just to add as well, he was searching for her online on Xmas Eve and Xmas day last year while looking after his grandchildren.

It felt like a kick in the gut when her face popped up on the screen yesterday.