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iPhone Lost 10 years of photos & messages - back-up isn't showing up for 'old' iPhone X or Phone Xs Max.

At this point, as you seem to be trying anything, I worry you'll accidentally trash the backup you have (such as by running an iCloud backup of the empty X on top of the one full of photos etc.).

Do not back anything up from your X to iCloud (in fact ensure the option is turned off on your X) and go to your nearest Apple store and say you have a backup but the new XS doesn't see it. They should be able to sort it.
 
My pics aren’t backed up to iCloud as I had 18,000 of them and they didn’t fit. I tried to back up to Dropbox but it was so slow it never finished.

What’s a reliable way to get my pics back
From the backup?
 
Yeah I have to try something. All those pics are gone otherwise.
 
I'm so sorry. I wish I'd seen this thread before you went too far and ended up with non-working backups.

For the future - know that for the past few years you could have been importing your photos into Mac Photos, or into a pictures folder on a PC, before you wiped your phone. Importing into Dropbox first is much slower.

You could set up 2 factor authentication and upgrade your iCloud account to allow you to start storing iMessages in the cloud, along with all of your photos, and to have a second backup in the iCloud. You can keep original photos on your computer and the iCloud at the same time, and the iCloud backup is like a "backup of your iTunes backup". All my computers have more than 1 backup as well.

I would have also tried the REIboot app to reinstall the same current version of iOS on both phones without losing any data, while restoring in iTunes wipes the data on the phone. When my wife's iPhone 7 went into a continuous boot loop and her most recent backup was 4 weeks old, I was able to save everything with REIboot (it had stopped backing up to the iCloud 4 weeks earlier due to a corrupted iOS, and we didn't become aware of the problem right away).

You may have to wait for official iOS 12.1 to come out before being able to restore the 12.1 beta backup to any phone. I would expect that the "older" backup might go back onto the phone once the iOS is newer than the backup.
 
Not sure if still relevant, I use a brilliant program called Disk Drill to recover files (including from iOS devices that are plugged in AND iOS backups). It's got a great interface and finds an amazing amount of stuff (I've used it on drives that have become corrupted, partitions screwed and other failures.) This isn't a paid endorsement but I'd highly recommend, I forget the price, but its a piece of software that will continue to be useful in various situations. Check it out and I hope you can recover some photos from that backup (even if the backup is corrupted). Good luck!!!
https://www.cleverfiles.com
EDIT: I believe there is a free tier and you can do a scan of the backup to see if it picks up anything before purchasing. Highly recommend!!!
 
I don't understand..

1) Why do you install beta operating system to a crucial daily driver phone without backup of all the valuable data? It's called beta for a reason.
2) Why was the old phone wiped? If you are in danger of losing data, you don't mess up with the original container of the data. You should've protected your iPhone X and retrieved all the photos first. Now, without being sure that the backup file on your computer is intact and not corrupt, you're putting yourself in a dangerous situation of losing all data if the backup on your computer does not work.
3) It seems that you should now find out where the back up is located at, make a copy of the entire folder, and use backup reading software to retrieve information inside the backup.
4) Do you have iCloud photo library enabled?

A good practice of data safety is to use iCloud backup + iCloud photo library + (optional) Google Photos + iTunes backup/restore when you switch to a new phone and never install beta operating system to an important / daily driver machine. The first version of iOS 12 to be installed on my daily phone was the GM (there is also risk, but minimal).

When you encounter problem, you don't panic and cry. You think about the correct step to solve it. Everything will be fine if you stay calm and make sure that no more mistakes are made.
 
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