This is why iOS 17.5 recovered your deleted photos

In recent weeks, iPhone users have (understandably) expressed concerns about the iOS 17.5 photo bug and its implications. It also didn’t help when major publications engaged in fear-mongering by amplifying an unsubstantiated, anonymous report about these deleted photos reappearing on devices after being deleted and resold to strangers. Conspiracy theories and superstitions aside, let’s take a look at what really caused some deleted photos to resurface on certain iDevices running iOS and iPadOS 17.5.

Before we explore why iOS 17.5 restored some old photos, let’s first shed light on what happens behind the scenes when you “permanently” delete a photo.

iPhones contain a NAND storage system. So when you delete a photo or file, it is simply hidden from the user interface and the storage space it takes up locally is marked as available for use. Until another file overwrites the storage space it occupies, it remains there in the digital void. By doing this, Apple extends the life of the storage, increases read/write speed, and makes deleted files more recoverable – if you have the encryption keys.

Notably, wiping your device resets the encryption keys and completely destroys these files, making it impossible for a future device owner to recover them. So when you switch to a new iPhone, you don’t have to worry about the older iPhone’s data reappearing if you reset it properly.

The photo bug in iOS 17.5 and the fix for iOS 17.5.1

To get concrete answers, Synacktiv (through 9to5Mac) analyzed the IPSW (iPhone software) files of iOS 17.5 and iOS 17.5.1. According to the report, undeleted photos were recovered from the local file system via a new migration routine added to iOS 17.5.

Thus, the newly added strings caused the operating system to scan and reindex deleted photos that were in the inaccessible digital void. No data was retrieved from any online server anywhere. This confirms Apple’s statement 9to5Macwhich assures users that the bug occurred solely on the device and was not related to iCloud.

With iOS 17.5.1, Apple fixed this bug by simply removing the new scanning mechanism it initially added to iOS 17.5. The company has not implemented a feature to detect accidentally recovered photos and automatically delete them again, so those affected by the bug will still have to do it manually. Fortunately, the iOS 17.5 bug placed all these recordings at the bottom of the Recent folder and didn’t spread them across the library based on their original timestamps. So affected users don’t have to carefully search their entire libraries to double-check and delete them.

it comes down to

Based on the facts set out above, we can draw a number of conclusions:

• The now-deleted, baseless Reddit post about photos being restored to an iPad after being deleted and resold was a blatant lie that was irresponsibly amplified by some outlets. It is impossible for the iPadOS 17.5 bug to recover the photos from the old owner because wiping the device resets the encryption keys.
• The undeleted photos never left your iDevice and were not leaked anywhere. If you are affected by the bug, you can simply find it at the bottom of the Recent folder in the Photos app, and that’s it.