Bugs in software are very common, but none are quite as spooky as the one that's currently haunting iPhones running iOS 17.5. Users are reporting that photos they deleted long ago are reappearing for no observable reason. Worst of all, they always come back when deleted again, which makes those embarrassing images hard to get rid of for good. Reports began coming in via Reddit after someone made a post on the iOS subreddit about the topic. Titled "Latest iOS update has brought back some pictures I deleted in 2021", the thread goes into detail about photos magically reappearing despite being deleted.
People are unsure as to why this is happening, but one user speculates that there's a bug in erasing images where it doesn't remove the data from storage; all it does is remove it from your library. The newest update then made the system "re-find" these deleted images, so they seemingly come back from the grave - however, they were never truly gone to begin with.
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No matter what the actual cause is, be wary about old photos suddenly making a re-appearance on your iPhone. Deleting them won't get rid of them, so this is a case for Apple to fix. Until then, perhaps be extra careful over who you allow to go through your album until this bug is fixed.
Troubling iOS 17.5 Bug Reportedly Resurfacing Old Deleted Photos
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The reports could be down to an indexing bug, photo library corruption, or a syncing issue between local devices and iCloud Photos. Another possibility is that in attempting to fix a photo syncing bug that occurred in iOS 17.3, Apple has inadvertently caused a new syncing issue to occur that may involve iCloud backups. Some users running iOS 17.5 developer beta 4 earlier reported similar experiences. We'll update this article when we learn more.
