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

[bugeyedsheep]

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.

It’s been awhile since I was a Creative but I imagine Photos is similar to iPhoto. Behind-the-scenes iPhoto would generate multiple sizes of thumbnails for each photo during import to improve performance when you are scrolling through the library and would seamlessly switch between thumbnail files as you adjust the size slider for the grid. The only time you ever saw the actual photo you imported was if you double clicked on the photo to view it alone and even then sometimes that was a jpeg preview until you clicked edit to get at the original full size image. At that point it would be surprise…no photo. I’d have customers come in with the same issue you have and it was usually the setting where the photo is left in its original location while importing (like an external hard drive or memory card) and once that’s unplugged, photo disappears but the jpeg previews and thumbnails are still in the library. At that point it’s a matter of seeing if the customer still had the original photos on the memory card or hard drive and consolidating them into the library. If it was a corruption in the library, sometimes we were able to open up the photo library package and dig around in those hidden folders until we found the orphaned photos to rescue them. Sometimes (after backing up the library) repairing the library sorted things out and reconnected the orphaned photos to their thumbnails and sometimes we had to reimport the rescued images into a new library. Hopefully one of these solves your problem. I’m sure there’s more troubleshooting steps I’m forgetting but it’s been awhile.

 

[Bogstandard]

This is just a sleazy trick to have not fix the bug that recovers old photos like it did many time before. Concealing this backdoor as a feature.

Can't privacy my a....

Just a spoonful of sugar, helps the medicine go down. 😉

 

[uacd]

Apple execs: “Photos app is straight out unusable mess, what should we do about that?”

Also Apple execs: “Make it even messier! Add features single person in a world would give a f about!”

 

[fatTribble]

Apple execs: “Photos app is straight out unusable mess, what should we do about that?”

Also Apple execs: “Make it even messier! Add features single person in a world would give a f about!”

I actually think the current Photos app is pretty good.
If a new feature is added that allows me to recover some previously missing pictures, that sounds pretty good.

 

[videosoul]

I wonder if this will solve my issue with a corruption that happened when I switched from Aperture to Photos and about 10,000 of my photo thumbnails became disconnected from their source files. Still haven't sorted it all out. They're just sat there waiting to sift through.

And yes, over the space of about two years I spent about 10 hours on phone calls with the most senior staff at Apple I was able to connect to: they were never able to solve my issue.

 

[svish]

Good to have this option. Might end up being useful sometime.

 

[Jamie0003]

This is good. I’d love to see, in the future an album that uses AI to identify pics that are the wrong way up, as well as photos that are too blurry to be usable

 

[organisum]

Nothing is deleted. At best, overwritten.

 

[hagjohn]

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!”

I do not think anyone found a "recovered album" yet.

 

[fatTribble]

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!”

Blech. You got cynicism all over us. 🤭

 

[Tagbert]

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?

Do you use Photos on your computer and are you synced over iCloud so your phone and computer all see the same photos?

If you import those photos they should retain the meta data (date, time, location, etc) from when they were taken. Yes, they will appear in "recently added" but that is just a special album to show you what has been imported. If you look at the photos they should have their original dates and if you look in the photo library at that date you should see them. You can try it with a few photos to see the results.

 

[Tagbert]

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.

This only applies to photos that are stored in the photo library folder. It's not going to scan your whole computer looking for photo files to add.

 

[Tagbert]

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.

The photo files are stored in the file system. The library is a special folder that you can open if you really want to. Be careful to not make any changes as it could mess things up. The photos index is a database of metadata and pointers to the various photos, thumbnails, etc.

Photos has a way to rebuild the index from scratch based on the files in the library if needed. This new feature does that just for any photos that dropped out of the index.

 

[Tagbert]

What's exactly the difference?

A library folder normally looks like a file instead of a folder and clicking on it doesn't open to show the contents. You can right-click on the library and show its contents. If you do this be very careful not to move or delete anything as that can mess up your photo library. Library folders are used to contain a set of data in a defined file structure and are protected from casual user interference.

 

[maccorolla]

Wow, such a classy way to turn a bug into a feature 😆

 

[MrRom92]

Do you use Photos on your computer and are you synced over iCloud so your phone and computer all see the same photos?

If you import those photos they should retain the meta data (date, time, location, etc) from when they were taken. Yes, they will appear in "recently added" but that is just a special album to show you what has been imported. If you look at the photos they should have their original dates and if you look in the photo library at that date you should see them. You can try it with a few photos to see the results.

I do not use Photos on my PC and I do not sync any photos to iCloud.


If I reimport them to my library, yes they will retain the metadata, but they will never be back in the original order they were unless I specifically sort my photo library by date created - which is in many cases not the same as date added, so this would destroy my typical usage of the photos app.

I stay set to “date added”, as that is what is most functional for the photos app.

If I were to re-import my photos now, I would have all my photos up to July 16th, 2024 in their usual spot, then it would suddenly jump to 5 years of photos in the order they were taken, and then it would be back to 2024 again. This would be a huge pain to accurately scroll through when I am looking for something from THIS year.


The reality is that once something is removed from the library there is no real way to put it back in the spot from whence it came.

 

[platinumaqua]

The photo files are stored in the file system. The library is a special folder that you can open if you really want to. Be careful to not make any changes as it could mess things up. The photos index is a database of metadata and pointers to the various photos, thumbnails, etc.

Photos has a way to rebuild the index from scratch based on the files in the library if needed. This new feature does that just for any photos that dropped out of the index.

I know how the library works. Personally not a fan of Photos's method since it obscures too much compared to iTunes/Music's method, so on the desktop I manually organize my photos into folders.

 

[Tagbert]

I know how the library works. Personally not a fan of Photos's method since it obscures too much compared to iTunes/Music's method, so on the desktop I manually organize my photos into folders.

The point was that in the library the photos are still available as files if you need it. It’s not really more convoluted than using a regular folder if you still need the indexes and still need the thumbnails and other data. Having the library be opaque by default just keeps your grandfather from doing some “cleanup” and messing it all up.

 

[Tagbert]

I do not use Photos on my PC and I do not sync any photos to iCloud.


If I reimport them to my library, yes they will retain the metadata, but they will never be back in the original order they were unless I specifically sort my photo library by date created - which is in many cases not the same as date added, so this would destroy my typical usage of the photos app.

I stay set to “date added”, as that is what is most functional for the photos app.

If I were to re-import my photos now, I would have all my photos up to July 16th, 2024 in their usual spot, then it would suddenly jump to 5 years of photos in the order they were taken, and then it would be back to 2024 again. This would be a huge pain to accurately scroll through when I am looking for something from THIS year.


The reality is that once something is removed from the library there is no real way to put it back in the spot from whence it came.

I would never consider “date added” to be a significant field for photos. ”date created/photo take” is the relevant field. I guess if you think in terms of film canisters then maybe sorting by added date will make sense, it’s just not something I would value. In any case, since you pulled those out, your choices come down to reimporting them and having them sorted by date taken or just not having them with your other photos.

 

[HMI]

"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......."

So will this automatically import any/all photos that were never previously imported into the Photos app?
What If want to keep some photos/videos separate from the Photos App? Does it just assume I want them imported, and do it automatically?

Please let me know, devs!

Thanks!

 

[Tagbert]

"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......."

So will this automatically import any/all photos that were never previously imported into the Photos app?
What If want to keep some photos/videos separate from the Photos App? Does it just assume I want them imported, and do it automatically?

Please let me know, devs!

Thanks!

This is not going to import photos from all over your hard drive. This will just scan the photo library folder where photos have been import and look for any that have dropped out of the photos index for whatever reason. It will then add them back into the index and list them in the Recovered album. Photos stores its photo files in a library folder. there is an index database that maintains a list of those photos and presents them to you. Sometimes that index can be damaged and some photos disappear from it until readded.

 

[HMI]

This is not going to import photos from all over your hard drive. This will just scan the photo library folder where photos have been import and look for any that have dropped out of the photos index for whatever reason. It will then add them back into the index and list them in the Recovered album. Photos stores its photo files in a library folder. there is an index database that maintains a list of those photos and presents them to you. Sometimes that index can be damaged and some photos disappear from it until readded.

Thanks! That helped!

 

[Parowdy]

I have corrupted pictures taken with my iPhone and they only corrupted once they where stored in iCloud. Now they are blank and this feature either doesn’t exist for the 11P or these pictures don’t count, which is ridiculous

 

[Tagbert]

I have corrupted pictures taken with my iPhone and they only corrupted once they where stored in iCloud. Now they are blank and this feature either doesn’t exist for the 11P or these pictures don’t count, which is ridiculous

This is about putting photos back in the photo list if they get dropped, it is not about fixing damage photo files. Once that happens, the only recourse is to try to pull up a previous version. If you sync to Photos on your computer, you might be able to get to the original photo file, if any edits had been done. Try selecting the file and choose File/Export and choose original.