Apple iOS 17.5: Update allows deleted photos to appear

Weird bug in iOS 17.5
The new iPhone update reveals photos that have been deleted for years – including nude pictures

And suddenly the ex’s pictures are back: After updating to Apple iOS 17.5, numerous iPhone users report a strange error. What’s behind it?

On Monday evening Apple was there iOS 17.5 and iPadOS 17.5 released the latest updates for iPhone and iPad. They actually only bring minor changes, for example in Europe they allow apps to be downloaded from the manufacturer’s website. But for some users it has a special surprise in store: As if out of nowhere, photos that were actually deleted suddenly appear again – sometimes after years. Curiously, the problem could be due to a fixed error.

“I deleted this years ago. Now it’s magically back?” is how a user on Reddit describes the problem. Spicy: The pictures that suddenly resurfaced were nude photos that he had sent to his girlfriend at the time, the user reports. It quickly becomes apparent that the person affected is not alone with the phenomenon.

Bizarre bug with Apple iOS 17.5

One user after the next reports images reappearing, some of which should have been missing from the device for years. And which now appear again in the “Recent” folder of the photo app. That too star one case is known. The initial suspicion: Apple could have accidentally not deleted the images from its iCloud. But some users seem to be affected by the problem even without using the cloud. And: For some, images even appeared that had actually been taken on an older device – and then deleted there too.

There is a simple reason why users are so irritated: iPhones and iPads do not delete images immediately, but initially keep them in their own folder so that they can be retrieved if they are accidentally deleted. Retrieving images even after months or even years shouldn’t actually be possible. After 30 days or if you manually remove them from this folder beforehand, they will completely disappear from the device.

Is there actually an attempt at a solution behind the error?

Reddit user “komocode_” provides a possible explanation. Due to a software error, his iPhone froze in March – and some photos he had taken beforehand disappeared. After reporting the problem to Apple, he provided the company’s support team with some error logs to help them work out a solution. And indeed: After the new update, the error was fixed – and the photos appeared again.

That’s exactly what seems to have happened to many other users, he and others now suspect: Photos that were being edited or deleted while the device froze could have simply disappeared from the photo app due to a software problem that wasn’t discovered for years. but remained stored on the device in the background. Once Apple fixed the original error, they would have become visible again – to the surprise of users.

Even the pictures deleted on other devices could be explained like this: If you set up an iPhone or iPad based on an older device, not all of the data is loaded directly from the old device – the information stored in iCloud, such as photos or contacts, loads the devices from there – but a lot of app and background data is stored directly in the backup. The broken photos could also have been transferred from an older device to the new device in this way.

Bizarre exception

However, the theory cannot explain a particularly bizarre case. One user reports that he completely deleted an iPad and sold it to a friend. With the update, pictures of the previous owner suddenly appeared on the newly set up device. So far, however, the report has been viewed with suspicion: the data on the iPad and iPhone is actually stored in encrypted form, and a reset also removes the key – and reading the data is actually impossible. If it actually happened that images were restored from an iPad that had actually been deleted, that would be a catastrophe for the used device trade.

It still remains to be seen how Apple will respond to the phenomenon. If “komocode_”‘s theory is correct, it would be difficult for the company to fix the phenomenon with an update – after all, the “error” would actually be the solution to a problem.

Sources: Apple, Reddit, The Verge