Lost a very special photo on iCloud. Someone help!

[WarHeadz]

I was at my best friend's wedding yesterday. We only had one selfie that we took together the whole night because obviously he was busy schmoozing all the guests. The rest of the photos are the professional ones. Anyway, when I got home I was pleased to see that my iPhone 6 Plus that I got a great deal on eBay had finally arrived. I had an iPhone 6 but really just wanted the bigger screen. I proceeded to do one last final iCloud backup of my iPhone 6 before erasing it and restoring the 6 Plus from the backup. Everything worked without issue...except that one photo and two videos I took that day were missing. Every single photo I've taken in the last 6 years came back to my new phone, except the one that I wanted the most right now. I'm pretty distraught about it. I stupidly erased my old phone before making sure everything was completely restored on the new one. The photo is not in the deleted section, its not in the selfie section, it's nowhere to be found. I think I'm pretty much out of luck unless someone has some magical tip for me.

 

[Mystic Eddy]

This is why I always backup to a computer and restore backups via that method and have iCloud as a secondary backup mechanism. It appears that iCloud Photos hadn't backed up to the cloud before you did the last backup. You'd have thought manually doing an iCloud backup would trigger Photos to sync...but hey ho. Sorry you've lost the photo, not a lot that can be done!

 

[WarHeadz]

This is why I always backup to a computer and restore backups via that method and have iCloud as a secondary backup mechanism. It appears that iCloud Photos hadn't backed up to the cloud before you did the last backup. You'd have thought manually doing an iCloud backup would trigger Photos to sync...but hey ho. Sorry you've lost the photo, not a lot that can be done!

Yeah, I figured if I manually started a backup the photos would upload to the cloud. They didn't. Any photo I take right now uploads right to iCloud without issue, I just tested it, why those never uploaded is a mystery to me.

 

[gwang73]

Unfortunately, iCloud Photos isn't backed up as part of iCloud backup. It syncs as a separate service.
Have you tried to see if the picture is in the cloud via www.icloud.com?

 

[Sirious]

I was at my best friend's wedding yesterday. We only had one selfie that we took together the whole night because obviously he was busy schmoozing all the guests. The rest of the photos are the professional ones. Anyway, when I got home I was pleased to see that my iPhone 6 Plus that I got a great deal on eBay had finally arrived. I had an iPhone 6 but really just wanted the bigger screen. I proceeded to do one last final iCloud backup of my iPhone 6 before erasing it and restoring the 6 Plus from the backup. Everything worked without issue...except that one photo and two videos I took that day were missing. Every single photo I've taken in the last 6 years came back to my new phone, except the one that I wanted the most right now. I'm pretty distraught about it. I stupidly erased my old phone before making sure everything was completely restored on the new one. The photo is not in the deleted section, its not in the selfie section, it's nowhere to be found. I think I'm pretty much out of luck unless someone has some magical tip for me.

What version of iOS was your iPhone 6 using? What version of iOS is the iPhone 6 Plus using? Make sure that they running the same version or the second device is using at least the latest version.

You wouldn't get a full and complete restore if there is some differences in the OS versions.

Update the 6 Plus to the latest offering, restore it from the backup again.

 

[WarHeadz]

What version of iOS was your iPhone 6 using? What version of iOS is the iPhone 6 Plus using? Make sure that they running the same version or the second device is using at least the latest version.

You wouldn't get a full and complete restore if there is some differences in the OS versions.

Update the 6 Plus to the latest offering, restore it from the backup again.

They were both on 9.1. Don't think that's the issue.

 

[WarHeadz]

Unfortunately, iCloud Photos isn't backed up as part of iCloud backup. It syncs as a separate service.
Have you tried to see if the picture is in the cloud via www.icloud.com?

Yeah it's not there and it's not in the photos app on my Mac. Not sure why that photo wasn't uploaded to the cloud as soon as I connected to wifi.

 

[3568358]

If you go to iCloud.com log in and the click settings icon, then scroll to the bottom and click restore files, or look in that section, they're might be a section there for photos but I'm not entirely sure!

 

[gsmornot]

Yeah it's not there and it's not in the photos app on my Mac. Not sure why that photo wasn't uploaded to the cloud as soon as I connected to wifi.

Right. What you have discovered is two things...don't clean your old phone right away, verify everything is working on the new phone for a while first and photos are not part of iCloud backups if you're using iCloud Photo Library. Too bad you didn't send the photo to someone via messaging because that would have been saved in the backup. Your photo is gone.

 

[WarHeadz]

Yeah it's gone. Very unfortunate.

 

[planetf1]

Don't suppose you use dropbox to backup photos... Or google photos?

 

[CTHarrryH]

I find it takes a while (not too long but a while) after I'm on WiFi for my devices for my photos to sync with iCloud and other devices.
I guess I'll be extra careful in the future to make sure photos are everywhere before I do any maintenance.

 

[Mystic Eddy]

When Low Power Mode is enabled, it disables iCloud Photo Sync too, even manually.

 

[dk001]

You have just discovered the hard way that while convenient, iCloud and Photos is not a dependable mix. Physical backup AND a more dependable cloud backup are best.

Personally I use Google Photos and a HDD. Even then I will periodically backup the HDD to a secondary device. Too many moments and memories I prefer not to lose.

 

[ielessar]

If you go to iCloud.com log in and the click settings icon, then scroll to the bottom and click restore files, or look in that section, they're might be a section there for photos but I'm not entirely sure!

Yes try this, hopefully you'll get it.


There are some other computer software like Dr. Fone or whatever that claim it can restore deleted photos/contacts/etc from the phone, give it a try.