iOS 18 Adds 'Recovered' Album in Photos to Restore Lost or Damaged Photos and Videos

by

iOS 18, iPadOS 18, and macOS Sequoia include a new Photos app feature designed to help users recover images and videos that are lost or damaged, providing a way to get missing content back.

icloud photos
There is a "Recovered" album in the Utilities section of ‌Photos‌, and it shows up if there are pictures or videos on a user's device that are not part of their ‌Photos‌ Library. If you see the Recovered album in your ‌Photos‌ app, tapping into it will provide an option to permanently delete or restore any pictures or video stored in the album.

‌Photos‌ and videos can be lost due to database corruption issues, images taken with a camera app that did not properly get saved to the ‌Photos‌ library, or third-party apps that are provided with access to manage a Photo Library. Here's how to recover a lost image or video:

  1. Open the ‌Photos‌ app and tap into Albums.
  2. Scroll down to Utilities, and choose the Recovered album.
  3. Tap on a photo or video in the album, or use Select to select multiple items.
  4. Tap on Permanently Delete or Restore to Library.

When upgrading to ‌iOS 18‌, ‌iPadOS 18‌, or ‌macOS Sequoia‌, an iPhone, iPad, or Mac will automatically scan for photos and videos that are able to be recovered, providing immediate access to any missing content.

Note that the Recovered album only shows up in the Utilities section of the ‌Photos‌ app if lost photos or videos are located on a device. If there are none, you will not see the album.

With iOS 17.5.1 and iPadOS 17.5.1, there was a fix for an unusual bug related to a database corruption issue. After installing iOS 17.5 and iPadOS 17.5, some users saw long-deleted images reappearing in their Photo Library. Apple later said this was due to a database corruption issue that had caused the photos to reappear even after being deleted.

The Recovered album feature in the latest software updates should prevent something like this from happening again, while also giving users access to photos and videos that are in limbo.

‌iOS 18‌, ‌iPadOS 18‌, and ‌macOS Sequoia‌ betas are available to developers and public beta testers at this time. The software updates will see a public launch this fall.

Related Roundups: iOS 18, iPadOS 18
Related Forums: iOS 18, iPadOS 18

Popular Stories

iPhone 17 Pro 3 4ths Perspective Aluminum Camera Module 1

iPhone 17 Pro Launching Later This Year With These 12 New Features

Sunday April 13, 2025 7:52 am PDT by
While the iPhone 17 Pro and iPhone 17 Pro Max are not expected to launch until September, there are already plenty of rumors about the devices. Below, we recap key changes rumored for the iPhone 17 Pro models as of April 2025: Aluminum frame: iPhone 17 Pro models are rumored to have an aluminum frame, whereas the iPhone 15 Pro and iPhone 16 Pro models have a titanium frame, and the iPhone ...
Read Full Article • 122 comments
Apple 2025 Thumb 1

10 Products Still Coming From Apple in 2025

Friday April 11, 2025 4:14 pm PDT by
Apple may have updated several iPads and Macs late last year and early this year, but there are still multiple new devices that we're looking forward to seeing in 2025. Most will come in September or October, but there could be a few surprises before then. We've rounded up a list of everything that we're still waiting to see from Apple in 2025. iPhone 17, 17 Air, and 17 Pro - We get...
Read Full Article • 55 comments
iOS 18 Siri Personal Context

Report Reveals Internal Chaos Behind Apple's Siri Failure

Thursday April 10, 2025 7:15 am PDT by
A new report from The Information today reveals much of the internal turmoil behind Apple Intelligence's revamped version of Siri. Apple apparently weighed up multiple options for the backend of Apple Intelligence. One initial idea was to build both small and large language models, dubbed "Mini Mouse" and "Mighty Mouse," to run locally on iPhones and in the cloud, respectively. Siri's...
Read Full Article • 344 comments
M6 MacBook Pro Feature 1

Waiting for the Perfect MacBook Pro? 2026 Might Be the Year

Thursday April 10, 2025 4:19 am PDT by
Apple in October 2024 overhauled its 14-inch and 16-inch MacBook Pro models, adding M4, M4 Pro, and M4 Max chips, Thunderbolt 5 ports on higher-end models, display changes, and more. That's quite a lot of updates in one go, but if you think this means a further major refresh for the MacBook Pro is now several years away, think again. Bloomberg's Mark Gurman has said he expects only a small...
Read Full Article • 113 comments
maxresdefault

The MacRumors Show: New iOS 19, iPhone 17, and Apple Watch Ultra 3 Leaks

Friday April 11, 2025 7:13 am PDT by
On this week's episode of The MacRumors Show, we catch up on the latest iOS 19 and watchOS 12 rumors, upcoming devices, and more. Subscribe to The MacRumors Show YouTube channel for more videos Detailed new renders from leaker Jon Prosser claim to provide the best look yet at the complete redesign rumored to arrive in iOS 19, showing more rounded elements, lighting effects, translucency, and...
Read Full Article • 14 comments
iPad Pro iPadOS

iPadOS 19 Will Be 'More Like macOS' in Three Ways

Sunday April 13, 2025 6:43 am PDT by
A common complaint about the iPad Pro is that the iPadOS software platform fails to fully take advantage of the device's powerful hardware. That could soon change. Bloomberg's Mark Gurman today said that iPadOS 19 will be "more like macOS." Gurman said that iPadOS 19 will be "more like a Mac" in three ways:Improved productivity Improved multitasking Improved app window management...
Read Full Article • 198 comments
Foldable iPhone 2023 Feature Homescreen

Foldable iPhone Resolutions Leak With Under-Screen Camera Tipped

Monday April 14, 2025 3:12 am PDT by
Apple's upcoming foldable iPhone (or "iPhone Fold") will feature two screens as part of its book-style design, and a Chinese leaker claims to know the resolutions for both of them. According to the Weibo-based account Digital Chat Station, the inner display, which is approximately 7.76 inches, will use a 2,713 x 1,920 resolution and feature "under-screen camera technology." Meanwhile, the...
Read Full Article • 77 comments
apple intelligence black

NYT: Apple's AI Struggles Began with 2023 Chip Budget Dispute

Friday April 11, 2025 4:33 am PDT by
Apple's current struggles with Apple Intelligence and Siri began in early 2023 when AI head John Giannandrea sought approval from CEO Tim Cook to purchase more AI chips for development, according to a new report from The New York Times. Cook initially approved doubling the team's chip budget, but CFO Luca Maestri reportedly reduced the increase to less than half that amount, and instead...
Read Full Article • 116 comments
Apple Vision Pro with battery Feature Blue Magenta

Vision Pro 2 Rumored to Have Two Key Advantages Over Current Model

Sunday April 13, 2025 7:15 am PDT by
Apple is working on a new version of the Vision Pro with two key advantages over the current model, according to Bloomberg's Mark Gurman. Specifically, in his Power On newsletter today, Gurman said Apple is developing a new headset that is both lighter and less expensive than the current Vision Pro, which starts at $3,499 in the U.S. and weighs up to 1.5 pounds. Gurman said Apple is also...
Read Full Article • 117 comments

Top Rated Comments

GMShadow Avatar
GMShadow
10 months ago

It’s good to have.. but wouldn’t it be better to not have these issues in the first place..?
If you can create a database system that never corrupts you won't be able to dodge the trucks of money.
Score: 30 Votes (Like | Disagree)
fatTribble Avatar
fatTribble
10 months ago

It’s good to have.. but wouldn’t it be better to not have these issues in the first place..? Or ask the users to resolve whenever there is such occurrences, rather than creating an album?

I somehow feel like this will be very hard for average users to understand what the purpose is
I think it would be confusing for people to be shown random pictures at random times and ask them to make a decision on the spot. At least with this Album they are there in case the person ever wants to look. Yes, preventing problems is better. I’m sure Apple thought about that.
Score: 15 Votes (Like | Disagree)
6787872 Avatar
6787872
10 months ago
i wonder if other people's pictures will show up here...
Score: 6 Votes (Like | Disagree)
Tagbert Avatar
Tagbert
10 months ago

Yes. A bunch of peoples old photos started showing up enexpectedly. Might as well make lemonade out of it.
This is the mechanism that resurfaced those photos which had failed to actually be deleted. I don't see any problem. It's a useful feature to help restore photos when the index database gets corrupted. Definitely better than having to rebuild the index to do the same thing.
Score: 6 Votes (Like | Disagree)
MiBook84 Avatar
MiBook84
10 months ago
Apple tries their best to make users buy iPhones with little memory and instead use iCloud so that their photos and other personal information is stored on their servers where data is more easily accessible than on the device. It’s a weird twist as Apple always markets privacy as a number one feature and always talks about on device security. Security in the cloud however. That is another question. The recovered photos feature comes well in time after the bug that caused other people’s iCloud data to sync to other devices and I think we all have to agree that storing such data in massive centralized servers isn’t always great. Let’s see when that changes.
Score: 6 Votes (Like | Disagree)
Ronlap Avatar
Ronlap
10 months ago
I have a bunch of photos that show up as thumbnails but when I click on them, I get an error that they cannot be found on disc. Photos is set to import all images, so not sure how this happened.
Score: 5 Votes (Like | Disagree)
Read All Comments