iOS 17.5 allegedly resurfaces photos that were deleted years ago

A bug in iOS 17.5 allegedly resurfaces photos that were deleted years ago for some iPhone users, according to a report. For posts on Reddit. Affected iPhone users say that after the update to iOS 17.5 – which was released on Monday – there are a number of photos in the Photos app that were deleted years ago.

May 17, 2024 Update below…

iOS 17.5 has a very bad problem with the Photos app

The photos in question are said to appear as the latest photos in the Photos app after installing iOS 17.5. One user says:

When I was talking to my partner, I went to send a photo and saw that the most recent photos were NSFW material we made years ago when we were living apart. It was permanently deleted years ago, but magically it came back?

I checked my iPad and also found photos (some artwork I made years ago). I feel uncomfortable.

“Same thing here. I have four photos from 2010 that keep popping up as the newest ones load to iCloud. I’ve been deleting them repeatedly,” another user wrote in the Reddit thread.

There are a number of reports of similar situations in the thread on Reddit. Some users see deleted photos from years ago reappear in their libraries, while others see photos from earlier this year.

By default, the Photos app has a Recently Deleted feature that keeps deleted photos for 30 days. That’s not what’s happening here, as most of the photos in question are months or years old, not days.

Apple has not commented on the problem, but it is of course raised countless Concerns and questions about privacy and data retention. Some users on Reddit speculate that iOS 17.5 may have made changes to the Photos app that require the app to re-index photo libraries.

However, even if the Photos app goes through some sort of re-indexing process in iOS 17.5, there’s no excuse for photos that users thought were deleted to reappear.

Have you noticed any old photos reappearing in the Photos app after updating to iOS 17.5? Let us know in the comments.