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DELETED photos are still not deleted & still remains on iCloud!

V

venividivigor

macrumors 6502
Original poster
Jun 11, 2013
316
99
After organizing my photos on the iPhone, I found out that A LOT of the photos I've deleted remained on my MacBook Pro, buried in the "Photo's Library" -> "Masters" folder.

http://imgur.com/DXG7AgZ

Only way to find them was thru Spotlight.

http://imgur.com/8Rzzo0m

This is frustrating, because a lot of them were photos and videos I've deleted months ago.

So I decided to purge my entire library by deleting all my photos, then trashing the "Photo's Library folder". When I created a new library and enabled iCloud Photo Library, all my DELETED photos were downloaded back to the "masters" folder. These pictures and videos don't show up in the app, but it did say it was downloading 1000 photos initially. How could it be downloading over a 1000 photos when my library has been empty for weeks???

http://imgur.com/lxCAbZH

It got even freakier when older photos (photos from 2014) started to show up in the "masters" folder when the Photos app was "done" downloading. (Once again, these photos don't show up in the app)

Anyways these deleted photos are inaccessible to me on the iCloud website, iPhone, iPad, and Mac. But I know they are for sure still in the cloud and they keep redownloading them to my devices secretly.

These photos are very private and need to be deleted. They also eat up a lot of space.

I can't be the only one...

image.jpeg
image.jpeg
 
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I switch to google photos for that reason. Phantom space used in icloud photos. Turn off icloud photos and wait for 30 days so everything will be deleted completely. Thats all. And now that i moved to free unlimited google photos and 30 days have passed after i turn off icloud photos, i dont care. I left icloud photos off!
 
Look at my screenshot as a truth to what i was saying before. 2.9gb space is being used with 0 photos and videos in icloud photos!
The funny thing is that i installed icloud for windows and it started by itself to download these 2.9gb. I found out that it was deleted photos and videos months before. Maybe broken upload syncs.

55b090fe5a88f583c37ce31f2e923cce.jpg
 
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freemannnn said:
Look at my screenshot as a truth to what i was saying before. 2.9gb space is being used with 0 photos and videos in icloud photos!
The funny thing is that i installed icloud for windows and it started by itself to download these 2.9gb. I found out that it was deleted photos and videos months before. Maybe broken upload syncs.

55b090fe5a88f583c37ce31f2e923cce.jpg
Click to expand...

Oh yeah... Mine says that too, only 432 mb tho. I couldn't wait 30 days for it to be deleted. The problem is for me; photos I try to delete, aren't actually deleted off the cloud. So the issue is... Photos you delete aren't actually deleted from the cloud. Apple is unreliable.
 
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freemannnn said:
Yes. It was empty also for me.
Click to expand...

It says that my library has 0 photos and 0 videos but has 430 MB.

I'm assuming the 430 MB of data are the photos and videos that were supposed to be deleted and it keeps on downloading it to my Mac.
 
Don't worry, you're not the only one...

What I did to clear up my space was the following:

1. I went on iCloud.com and deleted all my photos and videos and emptied the "recently deleted folder" as well.
2. iCloud Photos reported 0 photos and 0 videos.
3. iCloud Photos storage occupied approx 1GB of data...
4. On my windows laptop I installed, iCloud for Windows and asked it to download all my iCloud Photos media.
5. Voila! Most of my invisible and deleted photos were downloaded to my laptop!
6. I then went and uploaded all those deleted photos up to iCloud.com.
7. iCloud Photos now showed all those phantom photos.
8. Deleting those files cleaned up the remaining used space...

Hope this helps you as well!

PS: What I think is happening (or what I think happened in my case) is that this is a bug... If for example I take 10 photos while being outside (no wifi), delete 5 of them and delete them from the "recently deleted folder" as well, when I connect agai to a wifi network, the backup process begins and the phone uploads all of them (all 10) to the iCloud but "hides" the deleted 5 due to a bug... What I did above was "overwriting" the invisible files... Just my 2c...
 
In my case i stop using icloud photos because it was automatic uploading videos that sometimes are very large and time consumming to upload. I want to upload when iwant. I open google photos and starts uploading when i want.
There should be an option just to upload photos or/and videos.
 
Since they are still downloaded to the Mac locally, try holding Option+Command while opening the Photos app. That will let you repair the local photo library and it may re-add the orphaned photos so you can delete them properly.

It's pretty atrocious that the iCloud Photo Library doesn't automatically scan for files that aren't in the library and either add them back or delete them permanently. How do we trust that Apple doesn't keep all "deleted" pictures forever?
 
DoctorKrabs said:
Since they are still downloaded to the Mac locally, try holding Option+Command while opening the Photos app. That will let you repair the local photo library and it may re-add the orphaned photos so you can delete them properly.

It's pretty atrocious that the iCloud Photo Library doesn't automatically scan for files that aren't in the library and either add them back or delete them permanently. How do we trust that Apple doesn't keep all "deleted" pictures forever?
Click to expand...

That's a good idea, I'll try that when I get the chance to.

And as of right now I don't trust Apple at all. They literally still have photos I've deleted a year ago. That's f*** up.
 
I had the same exact problem. I called Apple and a tier 2 agent told me my library was corrupted because in my case I was emptying my Recently Deleted folder as photos were uploading which caused iCloud to go haywire. He issued a repair order and got engineers to rebuild my library in two business days.

So before I empty out the Recently Deleted photo I have to wait for those photos to upload. But soon as photos are moved to that folder they no longer counted against your storage so now I just let them auto delete in 30 days.
 
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jasonklee said:
I had the same exact problem. I called Apple and a tier 2 agent told me my library was corrupted because in my case I was emptying my Recently Deleted folder as photos were uploading which caused iCloud to go haywire. He issued a repair order and got engineers to rebuild my library in two business days.

So before I empty out the Recently Deleted photo I have to wait for those photos to upload. But soon as photos are moved to that folder they no longer counted against your storage so now I just let them auto delete in 30 days.
Click to expand...

Hmm, well even if my library is fixed because it could be corrupted, iCloud still doesn't delete photos I've recently taken, then recently deleted.

For example: I was at a party last night and I took a lot of photos, the next morning my photos would've been uploaded to iCloud and downloaded to all my devices. When I start deleting some photos, (and yes, even emptying my Recently Deleted) the photos I deleted will still remain within the "masters" folder on my Mac. And presumably on the cloud still.

Am I the only who sees this as a HUGE privacy issue?
 
This happened to me when Photos first came out – there were a bunch of photos that refuse to get deleted. It sounds crazy, but I had to give Apple complete control over my iCloud account, and their engineers went in there, ran a health check on my photos library, and finally fixed it...
 
haginile said:
This happened to me when Photos first came out – there were a bunch of photos that refuse to get deleted. It sounds crazy, but I had to give Apple complete control over my iCloud account, and their engineers went in there, ran a health check on my photos library, and finally fixed it...
Click to expand...

So your photos finally get deleted from your Mac now?? And what do you mean by complete control? Did you give them your password?? ... I don't think I'd do that.
 
venividivigor said:
So your photos finally get deleted from your Mac now?? And what do you mean by complete control? Did you give them your password?? ... I don't think I'd do that.
Click to expand...

Yes, photos are gone. I did give them the password (after changing it to some random letter combinations...)
 
venividivigor said:
Hmm, well even if my library is fixed because it could be corrupted, iCloud still doesn't delete photos I've recently taken, then recently deleted.

For example: I was at a party last night and I took a lot of photos, the next morning my photos would've been uploaded to iCloud and downloaded to all my devices. When I start deleting some photos, (and yes, even emptying my Recently Deleted) the photos I deleted will still remain within the "masters" folder on my Mac. And presumably on the cloud still.

Am I the only who sees this as a HUGE privacy issue?
Click to expand...

I experienced the same. Deleted photos weren't deleted even if my library contained zero photos. However in my masters folder I saw them, plus thousands of photos I thought I deleted from two previous years.

I couldn't fully delete new photos until Apple rebuilt my corrupt library.
 
jasonklee said:
I experienced the same. Deleted photos weren't deleted even if my library contained zero photos. However in my masters folder I saw them, plus thousands of photos I thought I deleted from two previous years.

I couldn't fully delete new photos until Apple rebuilt my corrupt library.
Click to expand...
haginile said:
Yes, photos are gone. I did give them the password (after changing it to some random letter combinations...)
Click to expand...

Could you guys link me or provide the steps on how you were able to contact Apple?

I'm sure the Apple Genius' aren't able to help me on this. I probably have to speak to the engineers or something higher up than a genius
 
venividivigor said:
Could you guys link me or provide the steps on how you were able to contact Apple?

I'm sure the Apple Genius' aren't able to help me on this. I probably have to speak to the engineers or something higher up than a genius
Click to expand...

I just called 800-MY-APPLE. You're going to have to talk to a tier 2 agent. They can look at your iCloud library and see if there are any corrupt files which I suspect it is.
 
jasonklee said:
I just called 800-MY-APPLE. You're going to have to talk to a tier 2 agent. They can look at your iCloud library and see if there are any corrupt files which I suspect it is.
Click to expand...

Thanks man! Hopefully it'll be a easy process.

IF you have the time, can you tell me what they got you to do?
 
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