I recently upgraded to a new iPhone 14 Pro and decided not to transfer my pictures from my old iPhone 12 Pro, thinking I could use it as external storage for now. However, when I powered up my old phone today, I discovered that nearly all my photos from 2021 to 2025 are missing! They aren't in the recently deleted folder, I didn't upload them to iCloud, and they definitely aren't on my new phone either. I've reached out to Apple support, but they weren't helpful, and I've scheduled an in-person appointment for Sunday. I'm really at a loss—any advice would be greatly appreciated!
4 Answers
If you signed in with the same Apple account but opted for a fresh start, your new phone might overwrite the old phone’s library. Just a heads up, you typically get 200MB of free iCloud storage, so they might be syncing without you realizing it. It’s a bummer, really.
Have you checked the deleted folder on your old phone? Sometimes photos can end up there by accident.
I checked, and they’re not there. It’s weird because I got the new phone due to storage issues, and now it shows I have plenty of space used.
Do you have an iCloud backup? When switching phones, it shouldn’t delete your old backup unless you did that to free up space. You can check under iCloud backups, and if you have two phones listed, you might be able to restore pics by resetting your new phone and syncing with the backup from your old one. Just a thought—it's generally best not to start fresh unless necessary.
I haven't used iCloud storage, so I wasn’t sure about backups. Where exactly do I find that? Is it on my phone or a browser?
You’ll want to check in the Settings app under your Apple ID, then select iCloud and go to Backups. It should show you the last successful backup dates.
I see it now, and it says my last successful backup was on September 18, but I didn’t initiate that. Can I revert to a previous backup? Would that make a difference?
Have you looked at iCloud.com/photos? Maybe they’re hiding there.
Yes, I checked everywhere! I even bought extra iCloud storage because someone said that helped them recover their pics, but no luck for me.
So I should have linked my old phone’s library then? It’s odd since I see pictures that are missing from both phones, and they are showing different galleries.