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 Forums: iOS 18, iPadOS 18

Popular Stories

M3 iPad Air

Apple's Next Two Products Are Coming Soon

Thursday February 12, 2026 11:17 am PST by
Apple plans to release an iPhone 17e and an iPad Air with an M4 chip "in the coming weeks," according to the latest word from Bloomberg's Mark Gurman. "Apple retail employees say that inventory of the iPhone 16e has basically dried out and the iPad Air is seeing shortages as well," said Gurman. "I've been expecting new versions of both (iPhone 17e and M4 iPad Air) in the coming weeks."...
Read Full Article
Apple Sales Coach App

Apple Launching New 'Sales Coach' App

Friday February 13, 2026 2:01 pm PST by
Apple plans to launch a rebranded "Sales Coach" app on the iPhone and iPad later this month, according to a source familiar with the matter. "Sales Coach" will arrive as an update to Apple's existing "SEED" app, and it will continue to provide sales tips and training resources to Apple Store and Apple Authorized Reseller employees around the world. For example, there are articles and videos...
Read Full Article • 26 comments
Coffee Burgundy and Purple iPhone 18 Pro Mock

Five iPhone 18 Pro Features Revealed in New Report

Friday February 13, 2026 8:43 am PST by
While the iPhone 18 Pro and iPhone 18 Pro Max are still seven months away, an analyst has revealed five new features the devices will allegedly have. Rumored color options for the iPhone 18 Pro models In a research note with investment firm GF Securities on Thursday, analyst Jeff Pu outlined the following upgrades for the iPhone 18 Pro models: Smaller Dynamic Island: It has been rumored...
Read Full Article • 56 comments
iOS 26 Home Feature

Three New Apple Home Products Rumored for 2026

Friday February 13, 2026 4:18 pm PST by
Apple has a long list of new products rumored for 2026, including a series of home products that will see the company establishing more of a presence in the smart home space. Robots are on the horizon for 2027, but the 2026 releases will be a little tamer. HomePod mini We're expecting a new HomePod mini 2 to launch at any time. Apple isn't going to update the device's design, but we could...
Read Full Article • 60 comments
m5 macbook pro deal

Why You Shouldn't Buy the Next MacBook Pro

Tuesday February 10, 2026 4:27 pm PST by
Apple is planning to launch new MacBook Pro models as soon as early March, but if you can, this is one generation you should skip because there's something much better in the works. We're waiting on 14-inch and 16-inch MacBook Pro models with M5 Pro and M5 Max chips, with few changes other than the processor upgrade. There won't be any tweaks to the design or the display, but later this...
Read Full Article • 247 comments

Top Rated Comments

GMShadow Avatar
GMShadow
21 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
21 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)
6
6787872
21 months ago
i wonder if other people's pictures will show up here...
Score: 6 Votes (Like | Disagree)
T
Tagbert
21 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)
M
MiBook84
21 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
21 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