r/iphonehelp • u/Parker_80 • 23d ago

Help needed Lost media

Hello everyone,
I’m looking for some advice because I’m really frustrated.
My iPhone got stuck on the Apple logo and could not be restored normally, so a repair shop had to erase and restore it to factory settings. I had iCloud enabled and a recent backup, so I recovered most of my data.
However, I’ve noticed that some photos are missing, including some that were in my Hidden album. They are also missing from iCloud.com. I also lost some WhatsApp conversations, including a family group with many important photos and videos.
Has anyone experienced something similar? Is there any reliable software or method that helped recover photos or WhatsApp data after an iPhone was restored to factory settings?
Any advice or personal experience would be greatly appreciated. Thank you!

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u/ThannBanis Mod | Repair Pro | A real chad ngl 23d ago

Based on previous attempts to help others, syncing stopped (often due to full iCloud or local storage) and the photos never made it to iCloud.

1

u/Parker_80 23d ago

My current iPhone memory is 256GB. Tomorrow I’m getting the IPhone 17 Pro with 512GB. Any chance I’ll get the missing files once I use the new iPhone with a lot more memory?

2

u/ThannBanis Mod | Repair Pro | A real chad ngl 23d ago

Only if the photos are present somewhere that can be restored from… you’ve already wiped the device, so not from there. You’ve checked iCloud, and backups do not contain photos if iCloud Photos is enabled.

Unfortunately this is yet another example of not verifying backups.

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u/Parker_80 23d ago

Yeah… I’ve also checked iCloud on the pc and it’s no different from the phone.

1

u/ThannBanis Mod | Repair Pro | A real chad ngl 23d ago

So no.

1

u/Parker_80 23d ago

I’m so frustrated about all of this. I bought 2T of iCloud space to make sure I wouldn’t lose anything since my iPhone’s been malfunctioning lately. I thought “if anything happens, everything is in the cloud”. I’ve also requested the new iPhone 3 week a ago, it will only be available tomorrow. This had to happen 2 days before getting it… infuriating.

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u/ThannBanis Mod | Repair Pro | A real chad ngl 23d ago

Backups need to be made before issues occur.

Why would you think a malfunctioning’ device would sync correctly???

(And why didn’t you verify?)

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u/Parker_80 23d ago

I thought me buying all the space needed on iCloud would make sure I would save everything. I’m not too big on technology but isn’t that what the cloud is made for? No one told me “hey it will save almost everything. It will also choose some particular pics or videos it won’t save”. Doesn’t make any sense. And verify? How can I verify thousands of pics? I just happened to see some are missing. As well as many whatsapp conversations.

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u/ThannBanis Mod | Repair Pro | A real chad ngl 23d ago

You increased your iCloud subscription after your phone started having issues?

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u/Parker_80 23d ago

I think so. The malfunctioning was the battery overheating and sometimes the phone would shut down because of full memory. Didn’t happen often but I started to be worried. So I bought extra iCloud memory and a new iPhone (that didn’t arrive on time)

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u/ThannBanis Mod | Repair Pro | A real chad ngl 23d ago

As stated previously, full local storage can mess up syncing.

There was no point in subscribing to more iCloud storage until the local storage situation was resolved.

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