New iOS & iPadOS update fixes reappearing photos bug

A Portrait Photo shot in iOS 17

Last updated 2 months ago

Apple has released a minor update for iOS and iPadOS, that fixes an issue in the Photos app that resurrected deleted images.

One week after releasing iOS 17.5 and iPadOS 17.5 to the public, Apple has issued a minor update for both operating systems.

The update to iOS 17.5.1 and iPadOS 17.5.1 replaces the respective 17.5 releases for each. The new builds are build number 21F90.

Among the fixes in the release is one that surfaced just after the 17.5 updates were distributed. Users discovered that older photographs they had deleted were suddenly accessible again in Photos.

Apple describes it as a rare issue that involved a database corruption for some users in their Photos library. It's not clear how prevalent the issue was.

How to update to iOS 17.5.1

Updating an iPhone is straightforward and doesn't require much user intervention. Generally, if the user has automatic updates enabled, the update will install overnight without prompt.

If, for some reason, the update doesn't install automatically or if the user wants to install it manually, that is done via the Settings app.

Open Settings
Tap "General"
Tap "Software Update"
The software update will appear here when available

Apple tends to release iOS updates on a rolling basis, so the update may not immediately appear for everyone.

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12 Comments

markbyrn 662 comments · 14 Years

About 2 months ago

If photos are reappearing years after you deleted them, this 17.5 bug only exposed the fact that Apple was somehow retaining the deleted photos. This 17.5.1 update only re-hides that egregious violation of privacy. Tim Cook bad!

TravisV 14 comments · 1 Year

This brings up another disturbing scenario with Apple. If the photo's that you deleted years ago reappear what else is Apple storing on their servers that you have deleted from Data Recovery in iCloud. ARE THEY REALLY DELETED or are they just hidden like files hidden on a mac with a ".".. THe question now is can Apple be believed when they say they can not read your FileVault Key that might be stored on their servers and that in Systems Setting in Sonoma and is Advance System Protection, protection at all!

mikethemartian 1425 comments · 18 Years

What happens on your iPhone, stays on your iPhone…even if you try to delete it.

StrangeDays 12830 comments · 8 Years

TravisV said:

This brings up another disturbing scenario with Apple. If the photo's that you deleted years ago reappear what else is Apple storing on their servers that you have deleted from Data Recovery in iCloud. ARE THEY REALLY DELETED or are they just hidden like files hidden on a mac with a ".".. THe question now is can Apple be believed when they say they can not read your FileVault Key that might be stored on their servers and that in Systems Setting in Sonoma and is Advance System Protection, protection at all!

markbyrn said:

If photos are reappearing years after you deleted them, this 17.5 bug only exposed the fact that Apple was somehow retaining the deleted photos. This 17.5.1 update only re-hides that egregious violation of privacy. Tim Cook bad!

Read the article. The bug appears to involve a corrupted local database, which is then insufficiently deleting the images. It isn’t about secret Apple policies to retain cloud images.

gatorguy 24371 comments · 13 Years

StrangeDays said:

TravisV said:

This brings up another disturbing scenario with Apple. If the photo's that you deleted years ago reappear what else is Apple storing on their servers that you have deleted from Data Recovery in iCloud. ARE THEY REALLY DELETED or are they just hidden like files hidden on a mac with a ".".. THe question now is can Apple be believed when they say they can not read your FileVault Key that might be stored on their servers and that in Systems Setting in Sonoma and is Advance System Protection, protection at all!

markbyrn said:

If photos are reappearing years after you deleted them, this 17.5 bug only exposed the fact that Apple was somehow retaining the deleted photos. This 17.5.1 update only re-hides that egregious violation of privacy. Tim Cook bad!

Read the article. The bug appears to involve a corrupted local database, which is then insufficiently deleting the images. It isn’t about secret Apple policies to retain cloud images.

Did they say it was a local database, i.e., on the owner's device? If so, I missed that in Apple's explanation. I had read it as a database maintained by Apple on Apple servers.

EDIT: No they didn't say anything about a local database, and in fact did not mention where the "corrupted database" existed AFAICT. It's a very vague and unclear explanation, isn't it? I could be misunderstanding.
"This update provides important bug fixes and addresses a rare issue where photos that experienced database corruption could reappear in the Photos library even if they were deleted."