In today’s digital age, billions of photos are taken and stored on smartphones like iPhones every day. With cloud storage services like iCloud, these photos can be backed up and synced across devices. But what happens when you delete a photo from your iPhone? Can Apple still access those deleted photos stored in the cloud?
This question has gained prominence in recent years amid privacy concerns around how tech companies handle user data. Apple in particular faced backlash over a proposed tool to scan iCloud photos for child sexual abuse material. While that specific initiative was abandoned, it renewed the debate around whether Apple can access your deleted photos.
In this article, we’ll examine how photos are stored on iPhones, how to properly delete them, and whether Apple can retrieve photos you have deleted, even from the cloud. We’ll also look at Apple’s stance on privacy and access to user data. Though the company emphasizes privacy protections, the question remains open on the extent of access Apple may have to your deleted photos.
How Photos are Stored on iPhones
Photos and videos taken with the iPhone camera are saved locally on the device’s storage in the Photos app. The Photos app organizes all photos and videos into the Camera Roll, as well as into albums that can be created and customized.
Without using iCloud Photo Library, all photos and videos exist only on the iPhone’s storage and are accessible in the Photos app. The number of photos and videos that can be stored depends on the device’s storage capacity. For example, a 64GB iPhone can store around 10,000 photos.
Photos and videos in the Camera Roll or albums are physically stored in the DCIM folder on the iPhone’s disk drive. When you delete a photo in the Photos app, it is removed from the Camera Roll but still exists in the DCIM folder until overwritten by new data [1].
Deleting Photos on iPhones
There are a few different options on iPhones for removing photos:
To delete individual photos, you can open the Photos app, select a photo you want to delete, tap the Trash icon at the bottom, and confirm deletion. This will move the photo to the Recently Deleted album for up to 40 days before being permanently deleted (more on that below).
To delete multiple photos at once, you can tap Select in the Photos app, select all the photos you want to delete, tap the Trash icon, and confirm deletion. Again, they will go to Recently Deleted.
Instead of deleting, you also have the option to archive photos, which removes them from your Camera Roll or associated albums, while still keeping them on your device and accessible in the All Photos view. To archive, select the photos, tap the Archive button, and confirm archiving.
You can also use the Albums view to delete full albums of photos. Tap the Edit button at the top, select the albums you want to delete, then tap Delete and confirm.
So in summary, the Photos app gives you options to delete or archive individual photos, batches of selected photos, or full albums of photos. Deleted photos go to Recently Deleted for up to 40 days before being permanently erased.
iCloud Photo Library
iCloud Photo Library is Apple’s cloud storage service that allows users to store their photos and videos in the cloud rather than just locally on their devices. When enabled, every photo and video you take on your iPhone gets automatically uploaded and stored in iCloud in their original format at full resolution.
The way iCloud Photo Library works is that it syncs your photos and videos between all of your devices that are signed in to the same iCloud account. So any photos or videos you take on your iPhone will automatically show up in the Photos app on your iPad and Mac as well, if they are connected to the same iCloud account. This allows you to access your entire photo library from any device anytime.
Any edits or changes you make to photos or videos on one device will sync across all your devices through iCloud Photo Library. It essentially acts as one master photo library for all your Apple devices.
iCloud Photo Library uses your iCloud storage space to store your photos and videos. The amount you can store depends on the iCloud storage plan you pay for. The basic 5GB plan may fill up quickly if you take a lot of photos and videos, so you may need to pay for additional iCloud storage. https://support.apple.com/en-us/108782
Deleting Photos from iCloud
When you delete a photo or video from your iPhone, it gets deleted from the Photos app on the device but remains in your iCloud Photo Library. This allows you to access those photos or videos again if you need to. To permanently delete photos or videos from your iCloud Photo Library, you’ll need to manually delete them. Here’s how to do it:
On your iPhone, iPad, or iPod touch, launch the Photos app and tap “Albums”. Scroll down and tap “Recently Deleted” to view photos and videos that were recently deleted on that device. Tap “Select” in the upper right, then tap each item you want to permanently delete. Once selected, tap the delete icon in the lower right. The items will be removed from iCloud storage as well.
You can also log into iCloud.com on a Mac or PC, choose Photos, then access the Recently Deleted folder. Select the photos or videos to delete permanently, then click Delete. This removes the media from all your devices and frees up iCloud storage.
Deleting photos or videos from the Recently Deleted album is the only way to permanently remove them from your iCloud Photo Library across all synced devices. The items will eventually delete automatically after 30 days, but deleting them manually removes them immediately.
iCloud Recently Deleted Folder
The iCloud Recently Deleted folder stores photos and videos deleted from the iCloud Photos library for up to 30 days before being permanently deleted. When a photo or video is deleted from the iCloud Photos app on an iPhone, iPad, or Mac, it is moved into the Recently Deleted folder and kept there for 30 days.
The Recently Deleted folder serves as a temporary holding place, allowing users to recover deleted photos and videos if they change their mind or delete something by accident. To recover a deleted photo or video within the 30 days, simply open the Recently Deleted folder and tap “Recover” on the photo(s) you wish to restore. The photos will then be moved back into your main iCloud Photos library.
After 30 days, deleted photos and videos in the Recently Deleted folder are permanently removed and can no longer be recovered. The 30 day window gives users enough time to notice if something was deleted by mistake before it is gone forever. This system prevents photos and videos from taking up unnecessary storage space in iCloud after a user has chosen to delete them.
To view and manage the iCloud Recently Deleted folder, users can log into iCloud.com and click on “Recently Deleted.” From there, they can permanently delete photos immediately or recover photos within 30 days of deletion.
Recovering Deleted Photos
There are a few ways to recover deleted photos from iCloud and your iPhone.
To recover deleted photos from iCloud:
- Open the Photos app and go to the Albums tab at the bottom
- Tap on the Recently Deleted album
- Select the photos you want to recover
- Tap Recover to restore the photos back to the Photos library
Photos in the Recently Deleted folder are stored for 30 days before being permanently deleted. So you have a 30 day window to recover deleted photos through iCloud.
You can also recover deleted photos directly on your iPhone. Go to the Recently Deleted folder in the Photos app and select Recover on the photos you want back. The deleted photos must still be stored on your device in order to recover them.
If you backed up your iPhone to your computer through iTunes, you may also be able to restore deleted photos from a backup. Connect your iPhone to your computer, open iTunes, select your device, go to Summary and then Restore Backup. This will overwrite your current iPhone content and replace it with the content from your latest backup.
For extra precaution, you can use a third party app like iMazing that creates backups separate from iCloud and iTunes. With iMazing you can browse and recover deleted photos from any iPhone or iCloud backup.
Source: https://www.multcloud.com/tutorials/how-to-recover-icloud-photos-0121.html
Permanently Deleting Photos
When you delete photos and videos from your iPhone’s Photos app, they are moved to the Recently Deleted album in the Photos app for 30 days before being permanently erased. The Recently Deleted album acts as a temporary holding place for recently deleted photos and videos.
After 30 days, deleted photos and videos are automatically removed from the Recently Deleted album and permanently erased from the iPhone storage as well as iCloud storage (source). The 30 day period allows you time to recover any photos or videos you may have deleted by accident before they are permanently erased.
To manually remove photos or videos before the 30 day period, you can tap on the photo or video in the Recently Deleted album and select “Delete Photo” or “Delete Video.” This will immediately and permanently erase the photo or video from both your iPhone storage and iCloud storage.
Once photos and videos are permanently erased in this way, there is no way to recover them. So it’s important to manually delete photos and videos with caution if you want to ensure they are permanently erased before the automatic 30 day deletion.
Can Apple Access Deleted Photos?
Despite common concerns, Apple does not have the capability to access users’ deleted photos and videos under normal circumstances. According to Apple’s privacy policy, they do not access personal content like photos and videos without the user’s consent. Even Apple employees and Genius Bar technicians do not have the capability to bypass a device’s passcode and access deleted content (source).
Technically, when a user deletes a photo or video from their iPhone, it is not actually erased from the device right away. The space it previously occupied is simply marked as available to be overwritten. However, the deleted content remains inaccessible both to the user and to Apple unless forensic data recovery tools are used (source).
In summary, while deleted photos may still exist on an iPhone’s storage chips, Apple does not proactively access or even have the capability to recover this content through normal means. Users’ deleted photos remain private from Apple itself.
Conclusion
To summarize, when you delete photos from your iPhone or iCloud Photo Library, they are moved to a Recently Deleted folder for 30 days before being permanently erased. During this time, you can recover deleted photos through the Recently Deleted folder. After 30 days, deleted photos are permanently removed from Apple’s servers and inaccessible to anyone, including Apple.
If you do not want Apple to have access to your deleted photos during the 30-day period, you should manually delete photos from your iPhone’s Recently Deleted album and turn off iCloud Photo Library. Deleted photos can only be recovered if stored locally on the device or in iCloud.
The bottom line is that once photos are permanently deleted after 30 days, neither you nor Apple can access them. However, for maximum privacy, it is best to manually delete photos you do not want stored anywhere and disable automatic syncing to iCloud Photo Library.