iCloud photos disappearing

[Confuzzeled23]

Hi there,

I recently got an iPad. I had all iCloud options enabled. I found that even with optimize photos enabled on the iPad the photos app was still taking up 7 GB. So I decided to disable iCloud photos on my iPad as I wanted the space to store Netflix videos for a trip.

I disabled it. However all the photos and albums were still appearing on my iPad and taking up the space. iCloud photos had been disabled for hours and my trip was fast approaching.

So knowing that iCloud photos was disabled. I selected all the photos on the iPad and all the albums and deleted them and cleared the recently deleted because I just wanted an empty photo library.

As I viewed my Netflix videos and regained my space for normal use. I enabled my iCloud photos on the iPad so I see my trips photos nice, big and clear.

I have now noticed on my iPhone that all my albums have disappeared and my photo library is shrinking.

What can I do to undo this?!

I believe at home on my Mac I still have my regular photos and albums but it was also set to optimize storage on the Mac.

Can I go somewhere to undo what has been done or are my last 20 years of photos gone??

 

[StumpyBloke]

I think this is yet another monumental cock up by Apple. I had to disable iCloud photos the other day on my iPad and as you have found out it doesn’t actually delete the photographs or the albums from the iPad, you have to do that manually. Anyway I deleted one of the albums and then noticed it deleted from my other device which was still on iCloud. Fortunately I just did the one, so I could recreate it easily.

How the hell did Apple decide that with iCloud photos turned off on the device, and you then delete an album off the device, that in reality it is actually still making changes to iCloud?

I should add, that when I deleted the photographs on said device, with iCloud photos turned off, the actual photos were not removed from iCloud.

Are you sure they are actually being deleted from your iCloud account?

 

[Confuzzeled23]

I think this is yet another monumental cock up by Apple. I had to disable iCloud photos the other day on my iPad and as you have found out it doesn’t actually delete the photographs or the albums from the iPad, you have to do that manually. Anyway I deleted one of the albums and then noticed it deleted from my other device which was still on iCloud. Fortunately I just did the one, so I could recreate it easily.

How the hell did Apple decide that with iCloud photos turned off on the device, and you then delete an album off the device, that in reality it is actually still making changes to iCloud?

I should add, that when I deleted the photographs on said device, with iCloud photos turned off, the actual photos were not removed from iCloud.

Are you sure they are actually being deleted from your iCloud account?

Thankfully when I logged into iCloud via safari it looks like my actual photos are there. I just can’t believe that all my albums are gone. Frustrating but not the end of the world. Just very annoying. Hoping I can open my MacBook. Turn off wifi and somehow copy the albums before they disappear!

 

[StumpyBloke]

Thankfully when I logged into iCloud via safari it looks like my actual photos are there. I just can’t believe that all my albums are gone. Frustrating but not the end of the world. Just very annoying. Hoping I can open my MacBook. Turn off wifi and somehow copy the albums before they disappear!

I’d forgotten all about that. Yes when I originally deleted all of my albums off my iPad, beginning of this year I think, without knowing what would happen I recovered them all from my mac mini whilst it was off the Internet.