A bug in iOS 17.5 is allegedly causing photos that were deleted years ago to reappear for some iPhone users, according to posts on Reddit . Affected iPhone users say that after the update to iOS 17.5 released on Monday, several photos appeared in the Photos app that were deleted years ago.
May 17. , 2024 update below…
iOS 17.5 has a pretty serious problem with the Photos app
The images in question are reported to show up as the most recent images in the Photos app after installing iOS 17.5. One user says:
While talking to my partner, I went to send a photo and saw that the last pictures were NSFW stuff we took years ago when we were living apart. It was permanently deleted years ago but magically came back?
I checked my iPad and there are photos on it too (some art I made years ago). I feel so uncomfortable.
“Same thing. I have four photos from 2010 that keep showing up as the latest photos uploaded to iCloud. I deleted them several times” another user writes in the Reddit thread.
There are a number of posts on the Reddit thread about similar situations. Some users see images deleted years ago reappear in their libraries, while others see images taken earlier this year.
By default, the Photos app has a Recent icon deleted.” feature that saves deleted images for 30 days. That's not what's happening here, since most of the images in question are months or years old, not days old.
Apple hasn't commented on the issue, but naturally, it raises countless concerns and questions about privacy and data storage. Some Reddit users have speculated that iOS 17.5 may have introduced changes to the Photos app that require the app to re-index photo libraries.
However, even if the Photos app goes through some kind of re-indexing process in iOS 17.5 there's no excuse for images that users thought were deleted to reappear.
Have you noticed any old images reappearing in your Photos app after updating to iOS 17.5? Let us know in the comments.
Update May 17, 2024:
Although a Reddit user claimed that old photos of him surfaced on an iPad he sold, I have reason to believe that this claim is untrue.
Apple has not yet commented on these reports. We will update this story as more details become available.
