iOS 18 Adds 'Recovered' Album in Photos to Restore Lost or Damaged Photos and Videos

by

iOS 18, iPadOS 18, and macOS Sequoia include a new Photos app feature designed to help users recover images and videos that are lost or damaged, providing a way to get missing content back.

icloud photos
There is a "Recovered" album in the Utilities section of ‌Photos‌, and it shows up if there are pictures or videos on a user's device that are not part of their ‌Photos‌ Library. If you see the Recovered album in your ‌Photos‌ app, tapping into it will provide an option to permanently delete or restore any pictures or video stored in the album.

‌Photos‌ and videos can be lost due to database corruption issues, images taken with a camera app that did not properly get saved to the ‌Photos‌ library, or third-party apps that are provided with access to manage a Photo Library. Here's how to recover a lost image or video:

  1. Open the ‌Photos‌ app and tap into Albums.
  2. Scroll down to Utilities, and choose the Recovered album.
  3. Tap on a photo or video in the album, or use Select to select multiple items.
  4. Tap on Permanently Delete or Restore to Library.

When upgrading to iOS 18, iPadOS 18, or macOS Sequoia, an iPhone, iPad, or Mac will automatically scan for photos and videos that are able to be recovered, providing immediate access to any missing content.

Note that the Recovered album only shows up in the Utilities section of the ‌Photos‌ app if lost photos or videos are located on a device. If there are none, you will not see the album.

With iOS 17.5.1 and iPadOS 17.5.1, there was a fix for an unusual bug related to a database corruption issue. After installing iOS 17.5 and iPadOS 17.5, some users saw long-deleted images reappearing in their Photo Library. Apple later said this was due to a database corruption issue that had caused the photos to reappear even after being deleted.

The Recovered album feature in the latest software updates should prevent something like this from happening again, while also giving users access to photos and videos that are in limbo.

iOS 18, iPadOS 18, and macOS Sequoia betas are available to developers and public beta testers at this time. The software updates will see a public launch this fall.

Related Forums: iOS 18, iPadOS 18

Popular Stories

iOS 26

iOS 26.1 Coming Soon: New Features for Your iPhone and Release Date

Monday October 27, 2025 7:55 am PDT by
The upcoming iOS 26.1 update includes a handful of new features and changes for iPhones, including a toggle for changing the appearance of the Liquid Glass design, "slide to stop" for alarms in the Clock app, and more. Below, we outline key details about iOS 26.1. Release Date Given that Apple has yet to seed an iOS 26.1 Release Candidate, which is typically the final beta version, the...
Read Full Article
iOS 26

6 New Things Your iPhone Can Do in iOS 26.1

Wednesday October 29, 2025 4:22 am PDT by
Apple is about to drop iOS 26.1, the first major point release since iOS 26 was rolled out in September, and there are at least six notable changes and improvements to look forward to. We've rounded them up below. Apple has already provided developers and public beta testers with the release candidate version of iOS 26.1, which means Apple will likely roll out the update to all compatible...
Read Full Article • 59 comments
maxresdefault

Apple TV 4K Could Still Launch Before 2025 Ends: All the Rumored Features

Monday October 27, 2025 4:51 pm PDT by
Apple is designing an updated version of the Apple TV 4K, and rumors suggest that it could come out sometime in the next couple of months. We're not expecting a major overhaul with design changes, but even a simple chip upgrade will bring major improvements to Apple's set-top box. Subscribe to the MacRumors YouTube channel for more videos. We've rounded up all the latest Apple TV rumors. ...
Read Full Article • 158 comments
iOS 26

Apple Seeds iOS 26.1, iPadOS 26.1, and macOS Tahoe 26.1 Release Candidates

Tuesday October 28, 2025 1:07 pm PDT by
Apple today provided developers and public beta testers with the release candidate versions of upcoming iOS 26.1, iPadOS 26.1, macOS Tahoe 26.1, tvOS 26.1, watchOS 26.1, and visionOS 26.1 updates for testing purposes. The RCs betas come a week after Apple released the fourth betas. The new betas can be downloaded from the Settings app on a compatible device by going to General > Software...
Read Full Article • 64 comments
M6 MacBook Pro Feature 1

M6 MacBook Pro: Release Date, Pricing, and What to Expect

Monday October 27, 2025 9:15 am PDT by
Apple this month refreshed the 14-inch MacBook Pro base model with its new M5 chip, and higher-end 14-inch and 16-inch MacBook Pro models with M5 Pro and M5 Max chips are expected to follow in early 2026. However, these machines will represent the final update to the current design, with Apple reportedly developing a completely new version of the MacBook Pro packed with next-generation hardware...
Read Full Article • 148 comments
iPhone 17 Pro Cosmic Orange

8 Reasons to Wait for Next Year's iPhone 18 Pro

Thursday October 30, 2025 4:42 am PDT by
Apple's iPhone development roadmap runs several years into the future and the company is continually working with suppliers on several successive iPhone models at the same time, which is why we often get rumored features months ahead of launch. The iPhone 18 series is no different, and we already have a good idea of what to expect for the iPhone 18 Pro and iPhone 18 Pro Max. One thing worth...
Read Full Article • 118 comments
macos tahoe

Here Are Apple's Release Notes for macOS Tahoe 26.1

Tuesday October 28, 2025 1:21 pm PDT by
Apple today provided developers and public beta testers with the release candidate version of macOS Tahoe 26.1, which means the update will likely see a public launch next week. The release candidate includes notes on what's in the update, so we have a full picture of the new features that Apple has included. macOS Tahoe 26.1 adds AutoMix support over AirPlay, improved FaceTime audio...
Read Full Article • 64 comments
M5 MacBook Pro

Waiting for New Macs? Apple Just Shared Bad News

Friday October 31, 2025 7:32 am PDT by
Apple has just given a strong indication that it will not be releasing any additional new Macs for the remainder of the year. Apple's CFO Kevan Parekh dropped the hint during the company's earnings call on Thursday:On Mac, keep in mind, we expect to face a very difficult compare against the M4 MacBook Pro, Mac mini, and iMac launches in the year-ago quarter.Parekh essentially gave a heads up ...
Read Full Article • 64 comments
ipad mini 7 feature blue

OLED iPad Mini: Release Date, Pricing, and What to Expect

Wednesday October 29, 2025 7:13 am PDT by
Rumors are stoking excitement for the next-generation iPad mini that Apple is reportedly close to launching. So what should we expect from the successor to the iPad mini 7 that Apple released over a year ago? Read on to find out. Processor and Performance Apple is working on a next-generation version of the iPad mini (codename J510/J511) that features the A19 Pro chip, according to...
Read Full Article • 66 comments

Top Rated Comments

GMShadow Avatar
GMShadow
17 months ago

It’s good to have.. but wouldn’t it be better to not have these issues in the first place..?
If you can create a database system that never corrupts you won't be able to dodge the trucks of money.
Score: 30 Votes (Like | Disagree)
fatTribble Avatar
fatTribble
17 months ago

It’s good to have.. but wouldn’t it be better to not have these issues in the first place..? Or ask the users to resolve whenever there is such occurrences, rather than creating an album?

I somehow feel like this will be very hard for average users to understand what the purpose is
I think it would be confusing for people to be shown random pictures at random times and ask them to make a decision on the spot. At least with this Album they are there in case the person ever wants to look. Yes, preventing problems is better. I’m sure Apple thought about that.
Score: 15 Votes (Like | Disagree)
6787872 Avatar
6787872
17 months ago
i wonder if other people's pictures will show up here...
Score: 6 Votes (Like | Disagree)
Tagbert Avatar
Tagbert
17 months ago

Yes. A bunch of peoples old photos started showing up enexpectedly. Might as well make lemonade out of it.
This is the mechanism that resurfaced those photos which had failed to actually be deleted. I don't see any problem. It's a useful feature to help restore photos when the index database gets corrupted. Definitely better than having to rebuild the index to do the same thing.
Score: 6 Votes (Like | Disagree)
MiBook84 Avatar
MiBook84
17 months ago
Apple tries their best to make users buy iPhones with little memory and instead use iCloud so that their photos and other personal information is stored on their servers where data is more easily accessible than on the device. It’s a weird twist as Apple always markets privacy as a number one feature and always talks about on device security. Security in the cloud however. That is another question. The recovered photos feature comes well in time after the bug that caused other people’s iCloud data to sync to other devices and I think we all have to agree that storing such data in massive centralized servers isn’t always great. Let’s see when that changes.
Score: 6 Votes (Like | Disagree)
Ronlap Avatar
Ronlap
17 months ago
I have a bunch of photos that show up as thumbnails but when I click on them, I get an error that they cannot be found on disc. Photos is set to import all images, so not sure how this happened.
Score: 5 Votes (Like | Disagree)
Read All Comments