The old saying (that I just made up) that “old photos never die, they just appear to be deleted” has never rang more true for iOS users who are finding that long-deleted photos are making a return engagement on their iPhone after installing iOS 17.5.
Users on Reddit are reporting that iOS 17.5 introduces a bug that causes old images that were deleted (in some cases years ago) to reappear in their photo libraries.
Reddit user Specialist-Fix8528 said:
Erm, so yeah. Very creepy. Thoroughly freaked out.
Just completed the update. When in conversation with my partner, I went to send a picture and saw that the latest pictures were nsfw material we’d made years ago when we were living apart (covid etc). But WTF. It was permanently deleted. Years ago but magically it’s back?? I checked my iPad and it also has pictures (some art work I did years ago). I feel so uncomfortable. Anyone else got this issue? I mean with pictures coming back post update?
Never figured out how to attach videos. I was going to share the iPad example
Damn, I feel uneasy still. But it’s “good” to know it’s not just me… I guess
**Looks like a bunch off tech sites are talking about it. Let’s see if it goes anywhere.
Other users have also chimed in with similar stories. “Same here,” said one Redditor. “I have four pics from 2010 that keep reappearing as the latest pics uploaded to iCloud. I have deleted them repeatedly.”
“Same thing happened to me,” replied another user. “Six photos from different times, all I have deleted. Some I had deleted in 2023.”
It isn’t clear exactly what’s happening, but since the photos that are making a return appearance are from years ago, it isn’t an issue with recently deleted photos coming back for more. (Apple’s Photo app keeps deleted images and videos in a Recently Deleted album for 30 days, allowing users time to recover or permanently remove them from all of their devices.
It’s not clear what’s happening, but given that some of the photos were apparently taken years ago, this cannot be an issue with recently deleted photos being undeleted. In Apple’s Photos app, deleted photos and videos are kept in the Recently Deleted album for 30 days so that users can recover or permanently remove them from all devices.
We’ll update this article as soon as we hear of more details or we hear of a fix for the issue. Stay tuned.
