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

33 replies

CelticCrow · 01/09/2026 17:39

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.

OP posts:
OuijaBoard · 02/09/2026 00:49

He sounds, at best, incredibly in\decisive (he keeps looking at her photographs because he can't decide whether to delete them?) which is eventually going to be irritating in a serious relationship. He obviously isn't telling the full truth about the ex, but it may well be just that he's embarrassed that he's still hung up on her, not that anything's going on. The more important issue seems to be that you don't (and obviously shouldn't) trust him. You say you've broken up twice already - were all of the issues that cause the breakup completely resolved before you got back together? Are they still?

CelticCrow · 02/09/2026 00:54

LoremIpsumCici · 01/09/2026 19:40

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?

My updates explain why.

OP posts:
KojaksLollipop · 02/09/2026 00:57

Yes, my phone does. I have a different photo show up every hour from my camera roll, or rather a album called ‘featured’, I was tried to find a way of controlling what is in my featured album but it won’t let me add photos but will let me delete photos from it. It did take some thought on how to do it though.

Any1ForTennis · 02/09/2026 00:58

Whatever the reason, I couldn't be arsed with acting like a teenager at 58!

Why are you wasting time on this guy?

CelticCrow · 02/09/2026 00:59

Another thing I've just remembered... Before he got the iPhone, and I was suspicious and went through his Samsung, the Gallery only had 3 photos of her. This one on the iphone had about 30, at a guess, hence wondered where they came from as he didn't have a cloud or other online storage....

OP posts:
CelticCrow · 02/09/2026 01:01

Any1ForTennis · 02/09/2026 00:58

Whatever the reason, I couldn't be arsed with acting like a teenager at 58!

Why are you wasting time on this guy?

He begged me to give him another chance. But I've had enough now.

OP posts:
CelticCrow · 02/09/2026 01:11

OuijaBoard · 02/09/2026 00:49

He sounds, at best, incredibly in\decisive (he keeps looking at her photographs because he can't decide whether to delete them?) which is eventually going to be irritating in a serious relationship. He obviously isn't telling the full truth about the ex, but it may well be just that he's embarrassed that he's still hung up on her, not that anything's going on. The more important issue seems to be that you don't (and obviously shouldn't) trust him. You say you've broken up twice already - were all of the issues that cause the breakup completely resolved before you got back together? Are they still?

Thanks. I thought some of the issues had been ironed out, but him now telling me that he has been looking at her recently has eroded my trust again. They were hardly together for long at all, plus it was ages ago. Like ended in 2020 or 2021. No children together.

I feel like second best again and I don't think I can trust him fully again. He lied last time and it's only because I snooped that I knew he was lying.

Aside from her, there are other problems. We're working on them but now I just want to jump ship.

OP posts:
ShelleyCarpenter · 02/09/2026 01:34

Danhausenrocks · 01/09/2026 19:14

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

Same!

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