Like many, I started using iCloud to manage my ever-growing collection of photos and files, hoping to free up precious space on my phone. Initially, it seemed like a great solution. However, I soon noticed that despite being stored in iCloud, my photos were still consuming a significant chunk of storage on my iPhone – upwards of 30GB! I never quite figured out how to reclaim that space.
Recently, in an attempt to manage storage, I experimented with toggling the “Sync iCloud Drive to this phone” setting off and on. To my surprise, this action cleared recent files from my phone, while thankfully, they remained safe in iCloud. Seeing this, I thought I had found a temporary fix for when iCloud Drive hogged too much local storage. I could just toggle the sync, clear the phone, and toggle it back on.
Then, I had the bright idea – or so I thought – to apply the same logic to my iCloud Photos. I toggled “iCloud Photos” off and then on in my settings. The system prompted me with two options: “Remove photos from device” or “Download Photos & Videos”. Thinking I was being clever and would simply re-sync and clear space, I chose “Remove photos from device” and waited a minute before toggling iCloud Photos back on.
This decision turned out to be a huge mistake. Almost immediately, I noticed my photo albums and the photos within them began to disappear from my phone. The number of photos displayed was rapidly decreasing, and I couldn’t find the missing images anywhere on my device – not even in the general camera roll or timeline, outside of the albums where I had originally organized them.
Panicked, I rushed to access iCloud through my web browser, desperately hoping to find my photos safe and sound. Thankfully, on the web interface, everything seemed normal. My albums were there, and the photos appeared untouched. But my relief was short-lived. I’m terrified that this phone-side deletion will eventually sync with my web account, as similar issues have occurred before with other iCloud syncing problems, potentially making these precious memories unrecoverable forever.
My phone now claims it’s “Syncing with iCloud” and needs to be connected to power overnight, just like during the initial setup. However, the syncing process keeps stalling and freezing, ironically due to “Lack of storage.” This is incredibly frustrating because, as far as I can tell, iCloud Photos are the primary culprit consuming my storage. It makes absolutely no sense to me how syncing to iCloud is resulting in the removal of images from my devices. This whole process has backfired spectacularly, somehow making my photo storage situation even worse.
As I write this, iCloud Photos has already deleted over 12,000 images from my phone, and they are nowhere to be found in the “Recently Deleted” album. My biggest fear is that this deletion will propagate and sync across my entire iCloud account, wiping out photos from the web as well, photos that would be lost forever.
I urgently need solutions. Unfortunately, scheduling a call with Apple Support is not feasible for me right now due to unpredictable scheduling constraints in my life. By the time I can find a suitable time slot, which could be weeks away, I fear it might be too late. These aren’t just any photos; they are incredibly important memories for my family and me. The sheer volume of photos, over 250GB, sorted meticulously within iCloud albums, makes backing them up elsewhere incredibly challenging. Losing these photos would be devastating, far beyond just data loss – they represent irreplaceable moments, and their disappearance could have a profound impact on my personal life and family history. If anyone has experienced a similar issue or knows Where Can I See My Icloud Photos if they’ve seemingly vanished from my phone after a sync mishap, please, any advice would be a lifeline right now.
