Apple's update to iOS 17.5 may be causing problems for some users, with reports of photos deleted long ago resurfacing on devices.
A Portrait Photo on an iPhone 15
When users delete images from a device, they expect them to be inaccessible after a period of time. However, a bug in the iOS 17.5 update may be resurfacing older images that users may want to keep out of view.
In posts to Reddit, users are complaining that shots they wanted deleted have suddenly become accessible again in Photos.
One user detailed that some non-worksafe images that were deleted in 2021 reappeared, complete with a mark saying they were saved to iCloud. Others report photos reappearing in their collection despite repeated deletion attempts.
It is unclear exactly what is causing the problem, but it's one that apparently appeared in betas. Some users of iOS 17.5 beta 4 apparently found the same thing.
So far, AppleInsider has yet to recreate the issue.
Users deleting images from the Photos app in iOS are warned that they will be deleted from iCloud Photos on all devices. The images are also kept in Recently Deleted for 30 days, giving a window of opportunity to recover the files before they are deleted.
The appearance of photographs deleted far earlier than that window could indicate that files are being kept around for a lot longer than Apple's warning text implies.
AppleInsider is monitoring the situation for updates.