Last week Apple released the latest update to its operating system, iOS 17.5, and although this update didn't bring with it many new features, its release was marked by a software error that causes old photos to reappear in the gallery, even though they have already been deleted.
The first reports of this problem appeared on social media, especially on Reddit, where some users showed their surprise when they realized that they had found old photos, which had already been deleted years ago, marked as "recently uploaded" to iCloud. Another user even shared a similar episode: "I have four photos from 2010 that keep showing up as the last photos uploaded to iCloud. I've deleted them several times". "I had a photo of a concert taken with my Canon camera, which reappeared in my phone's library as if it had been added today" - added another user.
It's not clear why this problem has arisen, but given that some of the photos were apparently taken years ago, it can't be a problem of recently deleted photos not being deleted. In Apple's "Photos" app, deleted photos and videos are kept in the "Deleted" album for 30 days, so users can recover them or permanently remove them from all devices.
Still, the latest reports indicate that it could be an indexing bug, corruption of the photo library or a synchronization problem between local devices and iCloud Photos. Another possibility is that, in trying to fix a photo synchronization bug that occurred in iOS 17.3, Apple inadvertently caused a new synchronization problem that may involve iCloud backups. Some users running iOS 17.5 developer beta 4 have previously reported similar experiences.
The original articles via PPLWare and Tom's Guide can be read here and here.
