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Dr.Fone - Data Recovery
Feb 21, 2025 • Filed to: Mobile Repair Solutions • Proven solutions
“I have just updated my iPhone X to iOS 16, and surprisingly, all my photos are gone! Has iOS 16 deleted my photos? Is there any solution to get back the photos that disappeared from the iPhone after the update?”
Updating your iPhone to the latest iOS version can bring exciting new features and improvements, but it can also come with its fair share of issues. One of the most frustrating problems that users encounter after updating their devices is finding that their photos have mysteriously disappeared. As I did extensive research, I realized that the problem is more common than you might think. If you are facing this issue after updating to iOS 15, 16, or 17, fear not! In this article, we will explore five effective solutions to help you recover your missing photos and cherish those precious memories once again.
Let’s discuss them in detail right away.
Before diving into the troubleshooting steps, you might be wondering if there's a direct method to recover photos from your iPhone after the iOS update. Unfortunately, there is no built-in tool from Apple that allows you to retrieve lost photos directly from your device.
However, there are third-party software solutions like Dr.Fone - Data Recovery (iOS) that can help you recover lost photos from your iPhone after an update. These tools are designed to scan your device and locate deleted or lost data, including photos, and provide a way to recover them. Let's now move on to the troubleshooting steps to see if we can resolve the issue without using any third-party tools.
ERecover Deleted Photos from iPhone
Sometimes, simple solutions can work wonders. Before diving into more complicated methods, try restarting your iPhone. A simple restart can resolve minor glitches and software-related issues that might be causing the disappearance of photos after the iOS update.
In this way, you can restart your iPhone and check if the missing photos will appear or not. Alternatively, if your device runs on iOS 14, 15, 16 or iOS 17, then you can go to its Settings > General> Shut Down to turn off your phone as well.
If there is an issue with the iCloud sync on your device, it can also make you feel your photos disappeared after the iOS 15/16 update. To check this, go to your phone’s photos app and view the available content. If you can find the local photos but not the ones synced with your iCloud account, then there could be a problem with its syncing process.
A while back, when I thought iOS 15/16 deleted my photos, I suffered from the same confusion. Thankfully, after resetting my iCloud account, I could access my photos back. You can do the same by following these suggestions:
As you know, the iCloud Photo Library feature makes the iCloud sync happen across different devices. Go to your phone’s Settings > iCloud > Photos and turn off “iCloud Photo Library”. If you want to retain the photos that disappeared from the iPhone after the update, just reset this option. After that, please wait for a while, and turn it back again.
If you are trying to access the synced iCloud photos via cellular data, you should check these settings. Go to iCloud Photo settings and tap on “Cellular Data”. From here, you need to make sure the cellular data option is enabled. Otherwise, the syncing will only take place when your phone is connected to a Wifi network.
The chances are that there could be a lack of free space on your iCloud account as well. To check this, go to your phone’s iCloud Store and tap on “Manage Storage”. From here, you can check how much free space is left. If you want, you can buy extra storage from here as well.
If nothing else would seem to work, then consider resetting your Apple account. Go to your phone’s settings, tap on your Apple account, and sign out from it. Afterward, sign in to it again with your account credentials.
Besides that, there are several other solutions to fix the iCloud photos not syncing problems that you can further explore.
The “Recently Deleted” folder was first introduced in the iOS 8 update way back in 2014 and later upgraded with iOS 11. It is a dedicated folder in iPhone that temporarily keeps the photos you have deleted in the last 30 days. Therefore, if you have accidentally deleted your photos, you can recover them by visiting the “Recently Deleted” folder. The same approach can be implemented to retrieve iPhone photos from Camera Roll after iOS update.
That’s it! After that, all the selected photos will be recovered back to their source. Though, you should be a bit cautious and follow this approach early as the Recently Deleted folder can only store photos that have been deleted in the last 30 days. Once that duration is crossed, the photos will be deleted permanently from your device.
If you couldn't find your photos in the "Recently Deleted" folder or if they were already removed from there, don't lose hope. There are still two more solutions to try, which involve using third-party software.
If you have already taken a backup of your photos with iTunes, then you can use it to restore the deleted or lost content as well. The only problem is that when we use iTunes to restore a backup, it deletes all the existing data on our phone. To resolve this problem and restore your deleted photos, you can use a third-party tool like Dr.Fone - Data Recovery (iOS).
Provides You with Three Ways to Recover Lost Photos After iOS 15/16/17 Upgrade
Wondershare developed a complete data recovery tool that can help you retrieve your data under different scenarios. In this case, we will use Dr.Fone - Data Recovery (iOS) to restore photos from a previous iTunes backup without deleting the existing content on our device. If your photos are missing after the iOS 15/16/17 update and you have a previous iTunes backup available, then this would be a perfect solution for you.
Just like iTunes, Dr.Fone - Data Recovery (iOS) can also be used to recover photos from an iCloud backup as well. If you don’t use Dr.Fone - Data Recovery (iOS), you first need to reset your device entirely. This is because the option to restore an iCloud backup is given while setting up a new device. The good thing is that Dr.Fone - Data Recovery (iOS) can help you selectively restore photos from an iCloud backup without the need to reset your device.
In this way, you won’t have to get rid of your existing data while restoring the iCloud backup. This makes it a perfect solution to restore the photos that disappeared after the iOS 15/16 update.
Besides photos, you can also recover videos, contacts, messages, music, and tons of other data types using Dr.Fone - Data Recovery (iOS) as well. It is an extremely user-friendly and sophisticated tool, which will let you selectively recover data from iTunes and iCloud backup.
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Losing photos after updating your iPhone to iOS 15, 16, or 17 can be disheartening, but there are several solutions available to recover your precious memories. In this article, we explored troubleshooting steps like restarting the iPhone, checking iCloud photo sync, and recovering photos from the "Recently Deleted" folder. If these methods didn't work, we also introduced two effective third-party solutions, Dr.Fone - Data Recovery (iOS), to selectively recover photos from iTunes and iCloud backups.
Remember to back up your iPhone regularly to avoid potential data loss in the future. While we can't prevent every issue that may arise with iOS updates, having a backup can ensure that your data remains safe and easily recoverable.
staff Editor
