I upgraded from an iPhone 13 to an iPhone 17 Pro at an Apple Store and traded in the old phone after an employee told me an iCloud backup was complete and that photos and videos would be compressed. I had upgraded to 200 GB of iCloud storage, but the backup was only 42.1 GB even though the phone contained more than 100 GB of photos and videos. After restoring the new phone, I found that many photos, videos, and some passwords were missing. iCloud Photos also has gaps covering several months across 2024–2026. The old iPhone was wiped and traded in, and the only visible backup is from the day of the upgrade. Could an incomplete or temporary transfer backup still exist on Apple's servers, and is there any chance the physical phone can be recovered before it is processed? I'm planning to contact the store manager and would appreciate advice on what else to check.
3 Answers
Look under the iCloud backup settings for an older backup of the iPhone 13, not just the one created during the upgrade. Also check whether you have an encrypted Finder or iTunes backup on a Mac or PC, an alternate cloud photo library, shared albums, or copies on another device. An encrypted local backup would be one of the best recovery options, but if no other copy exists and the traded-in phone has been erased, the missing data may not be recoverable.
The most important distinction here is backup versus synchronization. If iCloud Photos was enabled, the phone likely assumed the photos were being uploaded separately and did not place them in the iCloud device backup. A large library can take much longer than 30 minutes to upload, especially if the phone was using a limited connection or syncing paused. If the photos are absent from both the new phone and iCloud.com, recovery becomes unlikely unless another copy exists.
Contact the store immediately and ask a manager to check whether the trade-in device is still on-site or in the processing chain and has not been erased again. Since it happened recently, there is at least a possibility, but trade-in phones may be wiped and shipped quickly. Apple Support may also be able to confirm whether a temporary migration backup or older backup exists, though there is no guarantee that an invisible or incomplete copy can be restored.
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