Two weeks ago, reports began appearing of an unusual Apple bug. Following the iOS 17.5 update, photos that users had deleted years earlier were resurfacing, even on devices that users had wiped clean.
The company issued a patch last week, explaining that it “provides important bug fixes and addresses a rare issue where photos that experienced database corruption could reappear in the Photos library even if they were deleted.” The issue only affected a small number of users and a small number of photos, Apple says, but for those users, it was a pretty unsettling bug.
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While Apple initially blamed “database corruption,” the company now is explaining more precisely what caused the problem in the first place.
Speaking to 9to5Mac, Apple elaborated that the issue wasn’t with iCloud Photos but with databases on the devices themselves. In short, the restored photos were ones not synced to the cloud. When a device was restored from a backup — or from a device-to-device transfer — some of those photos were restored as well (from the device backup, not iCloud).
If you want to make sure your deleted photos are truly gone, here’s what Apple recommends you can do. (Note: This is only for times you want to wipe a device clean of everything.) Under “Settings,” head to “General” and then “Transfer or Reset.” You’ll see an option to “Erase All Content and Settings.” Once you tap that, everything on the phone will be deleted, with no chance of it coming back in the future.
Important note to those affected by this problem: The once deleted, now resurrected photos will not automatically be deleted again. You’ll need to manually go in and remove them on your own.
