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iOS 18 Adds 'Recovered' Album in Photos to Restore Lost or Damaged Photos and Videos

Could i somehow abuse this new functionality to re-add photos to my library i deleted?

Many years ago (in a time when 64GB iPhones were the maximum on offer) I deleted several years of photos off my phone so I could clear up a lot of space.

I didn’t delete the photos from my life for good - they were all saved into a folder on my computer. But as far as i know, there was never a way for me to go and put those photos back on my iPhone exactly where they originally were in my camera roll.


If i went and tried to save them all to my library now, they would be “recently added” and not in line with the date/time they were actually taken like they were when i took them in the first place, before they were deleted.


I’m thinking maybe there is a way to get those photos to be recognized as “recoverable” and then when they become recovered they would go back in to my library in the order they belong?
 
Now this, as a developer, makes a lot more sense to me about what happened before with that update. I’m glad that instead of sweeping it under the rug, Apple provided a utility to help recover images. They weren’t being stored nefariously in the cloud, they were transferring with each backup to each new iPhone for each person and for some reason something in that update got them unstuck. Probably someone fixed a bug that made them get stuck in purgatory in the first place. Good job making this right, Apple.
 
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Been waiting for this. Had a few “items” which doesn’t show up as photos or videos.

Maybe this will help me identify and clear them finally.
 
The cynic in me thinks this is a marketing cover-up to spin this bug as a new feature.

Tim Cook at the next Apple Event: ”Looking for missing d*ck pics you ’accidentally’ deleted? We‘re proud to introduce the Recovered Album ‘feature‘ in iOS 18 - our newest, greatest creation since the introduction of iOS 17!”
 
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I lost 2+ hours worth of unrecoverable screen recording before this feature was available. I wish this feature would save me and my recordings.
 
CrysisDeu said:
Either way, this is too technical for a lot of people. It’s probably better to just delete them in the background.

I never would imagine the privacy prompts (the one asking for location, camera access etc.) to be hard, until I see my grandparents struggling to choose an option
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Sorry but I don’t understand why you’d want to have photos deleted because some people won’t know to look there? There is nothing technical about looking in an Album.
 
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MiBook84 said:
It’s a weird twist as Apple always markets privacy as a number one feature and always talks about on device security. Security in the cloud however. That is another question.
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No it isn't. Apple has plenty of documentation that specifies exactly how cloud data and security is handled. https://support.apple.com/en-us/102651

MiBook84 said:
The recovered photos feature comes well in time after the bug that caused other people’s iCloud data to sync to other devices and I think we all have to agree that storing such data in massive centralized servers isn’t always great. Let’s see when that changes.
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That bug didn't happen. It was either a misunderstanding or fabrication. Your data is encrypted and Apple keeps an extremely tight hold of the encryption keys. Not only that, but if you want, you can enable end-to-end encryption which would even prevent Apple themselves from ever accessing the data.

However, even in the first scenario, someone would need to steal the data from Apple's servers then steal the encryption keys which are obviously stored completely separately. This risk of this happening is several orders of magnitude smaller than someone stealing your phone and guessing your passcode.
 
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Does this mean Photos will lag for hours while “recovering” all the on-device photos I specifically decided not to move into or intentionally moved out of its database? Can it tell photos from other jpg and png photographed and scanned resources that I use as an artist which are not photos? Sounds like a disaster ready to unfold.
 
maxfromdenmark said:
What about just fixing the Photos data base? I’m waiting years for Apple actually to do something about it. It is just a single file.
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Photos is a library (special kind of folder) with an SQLite database holding the index. The file structure contains the photos, thumbnails, and lots of meta-data. Sometimes the index can be corrected by a storage error (I’ve had that happen) and sometimes an app bug will write bad entries in the index (that was the cause of the deleted / not-deleted photos from a few months ago).
 
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MiBook84 said:
Apple tries their best to make users buy iPhones with little memory and instead use iCloud so that their photos and other personal information is stored on their servers where data is more easily accessible than on the device. It’s a weird twist as Apple always markets privacy as a number one feature and always talks about on device security. Security in the cloud however. That is another question. The recovered photos feature comes well in time after the bug that caused other people’s iCloud data to sync to other devices and I think we all have to agree that storing such data in massive centralized servers isn’t always great. Let’s see when that changes.
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Those photos were stored on the devices. They didn’t get restored back from iCloud. They were just dropped from the photos index but never deleted until an earlier version of this photo restoration feature found them and reindexed them.

The reason to use iCloud to store photos is so you have a backup. Too many people lose their phones and all of their photos because they didn’t bother to setup iCloud backup.
 
Dreagthe said:
Does this mean Photos will lag for hours while “recovering” all the on-device photos I specifically decided not to move into or intentionally moved out of its database? Can it tell photos from other jpg and png photographed and scanned resources that I use as an artist which are not photos? Sounds like a disaster ready to unfold.
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This will just be a background task the same as the face recognition, pets recognition, text recognition, memories generator… ones. If you “intentionally move a pic out of the database” it won’t show up as you did it intentionally (eg: deleting it). It’s already explained in the article
 
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I don't have it. iphone 15 pro max developer Beta 3 2nd edition (although it shows now as public beta)
 
MacRumors said:


iOS 18, iPadOS 18, and macOS Sequoia include a new Photos app feature designed to help users recover images and videos that are lost or damaged, providing a way to get missing content back.

icloud-photos.jpg

There is a "Recovered" album in the Utilities section of Photos, and it shows up if there are pictures or videos on a user's device that are not part of their Photos Library. If you see the Recovered album in your Photos app, tapping into it will provide an option to permanently delete or restore any pictures or video stored in the album.

Photos and videos can be lost due to database corruption issues, images taken with a camera app that did not properly get saved to the Photos library, or third-party apps that are provided with access to manage a Photo Library. Here's how to recover a lost image or video:
  1. Open the Photos app and tap into Albums.
  2. Scroll down to Utilities, and choose the Recovered album.
  3. Tap on a photo or video in the album, or use Select to select multiple items.
  4. Tap on Permanently Delete or Restore to Library.
When upgrading to iOS 18, iPadOS 18, or macOS Sequoia, an iPhone, iPad, or Mac will automatically scan for photos and videos that are able to be recovered, providing immediate access to any missing content.

Note that the Recovered album only shows up in the Utilities section of the Photos app if lost photos or videos are located on a device. If there are none, you will not see the album.

With iOS 17.5.1 and iPadOS 17.5.1, there was a fix for an unusual bug related to a database corruption issue. After installing iOS 17.5 and iPadOS 17.5, some users saw long-deleted images reappearing in their Photo Library. Apple later said this was due to a database corruption issue that had caused the photos to reappear even after being deleted.

The Recovered album feature in the latest software updates should prevent something like this from happening again, while also giving users access to photos and videos that are in limbo.

iOS 18, iPadOS 18, and macOS Sequoia betas are available to developers and public beta testers at this time. The software updates will see a public launch this fall.

Article Link: iOS 18 Adds 'Recovered' Album in Photos to Restore Lost or Damaged Photos and Videos
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Nice
 
Ronlap said:
I have a bunch of photos that show up as thumbnails but when I click on them, I get an error that they cannot be found on disc. Photos is set to import all images, so not sure how this happened.
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this is why my sync with Google Photos kept failing because it kept running into no file size photos. Literally had to search for the file name of each in spotlight and delete them
 
GMShadow said:
If you can create a database system that never corrupts you won't be able to dodge the trucks of money.
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Maybe they should've used the standard file system concept with a supplemental index of metadata (like Spotlight on Mac OS) instead of this convoluted library system. Even if the metadata part is corrupted, the files will still be visible to the user.
 
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MiBook84 said:
Apple tries their best to make users buy iPhones with little memory and instead use iCloud so that their photos and other personal information is stored on their servers where data is more easily accessible than on the device. It’s a weird twist as Apple always markets privacy as a number one feature and always talks about on device security. Security in the cloud however. That is another question. The recovered photos feature comes well in time after the bug that caused other people’s iCloud data to sync to other devices and I think we all have to agree that storing such data in massive centralized servers isn’t always great. Let’s see when that changes.
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I think Apple would be pretty happy if we all bought iPhones with more storage.

The bug I think you’re referring to never showed someone photos from some else’s iCloud account. There was no privacy violation. If you’re referencing a different issue can you share a link?

I’m pretty happy to have all of my photos backed up in iCloud as well as other cloud services.
 
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timemaker27 said:
I don't have it. iphone 15 pro max developer Beta 3 2nd edition (although it shows now as public beta)
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From the article:
Note that the Recovered album only shows up in the Utilities section of the Photos app if lost photos or videos are located on a device. If there are none, you will not see the album.
 
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