iPhone lost photos during backup - FREE software?

[BlimeyCharlie]

Hi,

I started using a new iPhone some months back, transferred Sim from old iPhone, including existing photos to new phone. Have done this before with no bother over the years.

New phone fine until I backed it up (Apple requested this).

I had turned photos off to being backed-up to iCloud, as loads on there I needed to delete.

Woke up and new 'system' installed on phone...but I'd lost about 1000 'old' photos.

I've looked at some different software that restores these photos - I can see them when there is a check run by software (which seems generic), but I have to pay approx' £50 to install the software properly that will restore these old photos to current phone.

Has anyone found a way to restore old photos for free? The check is 'free' but you have to subscribe (and pay) to restore photos, and all the software I've looked at are in Dollars, so not keen for that reason either.

Apple are cr*p really with causing problems that didn't exist.

Basically the 'old' photos are still in an old/previous iPhone still, can I transfer them that way by putting Sim back in?
'Old' photos are also on an external hard drive, but can't see how that will allow me to put photos onto new phone other than to email them, which is tedious!

Any help appreciated.
Thanks in advance.

[w1bbles]

If they’re on your old phone you can use Google photos for free and get them into the cloud via WiFi. Then you can choose whether to sync them to wherever you want. And if you use Google photos to sync them to your new phone they will appear in your Apple photo gallery.

Should be very easy. All my photos are on Apple iCloud and Google photos for added safety - as well as being on my MacBook and Time Capsule back-up.

My neighbour had his laptop stolen and every single photo he’d ever taken digitally was lost at that point as he didn’t keep them on his phone and had never backed up the laptop.

[BlimeyCharlie]

w1bbles said:

If they’re on your old phone you can use Google photos for free and get them into the cloud via WiFi. Then you can choose whether to sync them to wherever you want. And if you use Google photos to sync them to your new phone they will appear in your Apple photo gallery.

Should be very easy. All my photos are on Apple iCloud and Google photos for added safety - as well as being on my MacBook and Time Capsule back-up.

My neighbour had his laptop stolen and every single photo he’d ever taken digitally was lost at that point as he didn’t keep them on his phone and had never backed up the laptop.

Brilliant, I've just got old phone out so will give this a go when charged up.
I'll report back when I've had a go.

Thank you!

[alorotom]

There’s more to this story than described. Stuff isn’t just randomly deleted on iOS updates.

Google photos will indeed solve this as would Apple photos into iCloud which is also free for the first 5gb.

[Sheepshanks]

alorotom said:

There’s more to this story than described. Stuff isn’t just randomly deleted on iOS updates.

To be honest, I didn't pay a lot of attention and I'm not interested in learning all about Apple stuff, but something happened to the photos on wife's iPhone recently - as best I could gather it was because she's still using PhotoStream. Apparenty it's been discontinued but still works for existing users. It's supposed to keep the most recent 1000 pictures for 30 days, but in practice holds more and for longer than that - in her case it suddenly seemed to delete everything beyond 1000 so stuff she'd had for years (baby pictures etc so she could date them) disappeared.

I have multiple backups of her pictures as I used to have her pictures set to sync to my laptop - but that's never worked 100% and she insists there are some that have gone.

[The_Jackal]

If you dont pay attention and are not interested then things will go missing that you cant fix.
All you need to know is to make sure the phone backs up any photos automatically to the cloud. Whether that be iCloud or Google photos (my preference).
Life will be much easier when you do.
And transferring photos by SIM is not the best way to do it.

[shopper150]

I don't understand what a SIM has to do with 1000's of photos?

[alorotom]

shopper150 said:

I don't understand what a SIM has to do with 1000's of photos?

It has nothing to do with it. Photos aren’t stored to a sim.

[BlimeyCharlie]

alorotom said:

There’s more to this story than described. Stuff isn’t just randomly deleted on iOS updates.

Google photos will indeed solve this as would Apple photos into iCloud which is also free for the first 5gb.

I disagree on both counts.
I've had iphones for about 13 years. I've always updated operating system(s) no problem (when prompted, usually during the night).

Alorotom - did you not understand what I wrote originally? If I'd 'randomly deleted' 1000 photos then so be it. But it happened during an update - google it - it happens a lot...

I didn't have icloud as no need. No problems previously...icloud is just another 'thing' I don't need in life.

If icloud was marketed as 'have this because when Apple puts a new operating system on your phone for probably the 20th time historically bearing in mind you've had 6 iphones though you'll randomally lose 1000 photos despite having a lot of free memory' then I might have bothered to use (pay for it given the amount of photos I had/have) it. See the link with making money and upgrades that don't work? Google it!

Why can't people just see it for that? Why are companies charging a lot of money to recover 'lost' photos during 'upgrades' if there is more to this story than described?

I've lost 1000 photos during a simple upgrade! I have them on a hard drive AND in an older phone. What am I hiding?

As I said, the photos that are 'lost' can be found (I've seen them) if I pay for recovery to a third party company. Why are they there? Any ideas Alorotom?

Thanks for constructive advice elsewhere - much appreciated.

[BlimeyCharlie]

alorotom said:

There’s more to this story than described. Stuff isn’t just randomly deleted on iOS updates.

Google photos will indeed solve this as would Apple photos into iCloud which is also free for the first 5gb.

Even though "stuff isn't just randomly deleted on iOS updates" I found this...one of thousands it seems...


Why have photos disappeared from Camera Roll after iOS 13/12 update?

"After getting iOS 13 update, iPhone restarted automatically. Nearly 2,000 photos have completely disappeared from my Camera Roll without reason, I want to get them back because I have so many memories in those photos. This is rather upsetting."

-- Question from the Apple community

[alorotom]

BlimeyCharlie said:

alorotom said:

There’s more to this story than described. Stuff isn’t just randomly deleted on iOS updates.

Google photos will indeed solve this as would Apple photos into iCloud which is also free for the first 5gb.

Even though "stuff isn't just randomly deleted on iOS updates" I found this...one of thousands it seems...


Why have photos disappeared from Camera Roll after iOS 13/12 update?

"After getting iOS 13 update, iPhone restarted automatically. Nearly 2,000 photos have completely disappeared from my Camera Roll without reason, I want to get them back because I have so many memories in those photos. This is rather upsetting."

-- Question from the Apple community

Thats from a sales website selling their solution - hardly credible and it doesn't link the actual apple community question

https://www.easeus.com/iphone-recovery/iphone-phot...

And even they suggest the most logical solution "Turn on iCloud Photo Library" (where you aren't using an alternative like Google Photos)

Plus if you are only just updating to an iOS that was released in 2018 or 2019 more fool you (iOS 12 - September 17, 2018 / iOS 13 - 19 September 2019)

[ecsrobin]

Sounds like you’ve done an iCloud backup excluding photos and then restored with that iCloud backup. If you want to keep your photos backup the old phone via computer and then restore from that backup.

Reads as user error here.

[Sheepshanks]

BlimeyCharlie said:

Even though "stuff isn't just randomly deleted on iOS updates" I found this...one of thousands it seems...


Why have photos disappeared from Camera Roll after iOS 13/12 update?

"After getting iOS 13 update, iPhone restarted automatically. Nearly 2,000 photos have completely disappeared from my Camera Roll without reason, I want to get them back because I have so many memories in those photos. This is rather upsetting."

-- Question from the Apple community

Another thing I’m not sure about, but hasn’t Camera Roll been replaced by Recents - but it’s not the same contents or in the same place?

[BlimeyCharlie]

ecsrobin said:

Sounds like you’ve done an iCloud backup excluding photos and then restored with that iCloud backup. If you want to keep your photos backup the old phone via computer and then restore from that backup.

Reads as user error here.

I didn't have an icloud account when Apple suggested one of their 'routine' updates, the update 'lost' a load of photos.
I have an apple ID account, via itunes. All updates done historically without having an icloud account for many years...

All I did was plug the phone in, like I've done many times over the years, for the phone to be updated overnight. I DID NOT have an icloud account at the time.

[ecsrobin]

BlimeyCharlie said:

ecsrobin said:

Sounds like you’ve done an iCloud backup excluding photos and then restored with that iCloud backup. If you want to keep your photos backup the old phone via computer and then restore from that backup.

Reads as user error here.

I didn't have an icloud account when Apple suggested one of their 'routine' updates, the update 'lost' a load of photos.
I have an apple ID account, via itunes. All updates done historically without having an icloud account for many years...

All I did was plug the phone in, like I've done many times over the years, for the phone to be updated overnight. I DID NOT have an icloud account at the time.

Before getting arsey read properly what I put. I could literally talk you through how to fix this but I won’t waste my time.

[BlimeyCharlie]

alorotom said:

BlimeyCharlie said:

alorotom said:

There’s more to this story than described. Stuff isn’t just randomly deleted on iOS updates.

Google photos will indeed solve this as would Apple photos into iCloud which is also free for the first 5gb.

Even though "stuff isn't just randomly deleted on iOS updates" I found this...one of thousands it seems...


Why have photos disappeared from Camera Roll after iOS 13/12 update?

"After getting iOS 13 update, iPhone restarted automatically. Nearly 2,000 photos have completely disappeared from my Camera Roll without reason, I want to get them back because I have so many memories in those photos. This is rather upsetting."

-- Question from the Apple community

Thats from a sales website selling their solution - hardly credible and it doesn't link the actual apple community question

https://www.easeus.com/iphone-recovery/iphone-phot...

And even they suggest the most logical solution "Turn on iCloud Photo Library" (where you aren't using an alternative like Google Photos)

Plus if you are only just updating to an iOS that was released in 2018 or 2019 more fool you (iOS 12 - September 17, 2018 / iOS 13 - 19 September 2019)

More fool me? WTF?

I should have done things differently I agree...that is hindsight!

Bit like filling a car (a car I've owned for many years) up with petrol, then finding on this occasion I should have FIRSTLY installed some software to make the car start afterwards...or the car now only has 3 gears I can use instead of 7, because I should have known to pay for some software from the manufacturer...silly me, what a fool.

This was the first reference I found on Google. I wasn't trying to retro-update to an old system - why on Earth would I do that?

What I originally posed as the question, the TITLE of this topic, is does anyone know of any FREE software instead of paying £50 for a solution?

I think the answer is a no.

Thanks folks. Have a good day.

[ecsrobin]

There’s an easier way than using additional software......

[Zeek]

BlimeyCharlie said:

I didn't have icloud as no need. No problems previously...icloud is just another 'thing' I don't need in life.

On the contrary, iCloud was/is exactly what you needed! You're discovering that now.

[Coin-Slot]

ecsrobin said:

Sounds like you’ve done an iCloud backup excluding photos and then restored with that iCloud backup. If you want to keep your photos backup the old phone via computer and then restore from that backup.

Reads as user error here.

This is how it reads to me too, restored from a backup and the backup didn’t have photo’s included.

My media is important to me, for both work and personal. I don’t understand why people don’t just let Apple or Dropbox (both in my case) handle their backups, it’s just a few quid a month and you know that barring a nuclear war everything is safe and securely tucked away in the cloud.

I can’t remember the last time I backed up my phone on my pc through iTunes, it’s all over WiFi now with no user interaction needed.

[ecsrobin]

Coin-Slot said:

I can’t remember the last time I backed up my phone on my pc through iTunes, it’s all over WiFi now with no user interaction needed.

I got a new iPhone this week, it had the option of doing an iCloud backup and being able to use the phone instantly or leave the 2 phones next to each other for 2 hours on power and it transferred over everything. I’d not seen that option before but was really impressed, even the webpages I was currently on transferred over!