A strange and somewhat creepy bug is plaguing iPhone users after updating to iOS 17.5. The bug is resurfacing old photos, and in some cases, other old data thought to have been deleted.
A Reddit thread popped up about the issue, which has since been picked up by MacRumors and The Verge. According to reports, old photos — sometimes deleted “years ago” — are showing up in the ‘Recents’ album in the Photos app. The Reddit post starts with a report from a user who saw NSFW images they had deleted in 2021 reappear. That user also noted that old pictures on their iPad also reappeared.
Another person claimed photos from 2016 showed up as new images but didn’t think they had deleted the photos.
Notably, people who tested the beta version of iOS 17.5 also reported the old photos bug, which makes it somewhat surprising that Apple let the bug slip through.
Additionally, it seems the issue might extend beyond photos. Some people reported other old, deleted data reappearing after the update. For example, one person posted on X (Twitter) that several old voicemails they had already listened to or deleted came back after the update.
The Verge points out a few things worth considering regarding the bug. For one, iOS allows people to restore deleted photos, but after 30 days, they’re supposed to be removed. However, the reports all seem to be about photos deleted more than 30 days ago.
The publication also pointed out a quirk with computer data, which is that data isn’t actually deleted until it gets overwritten with new data. So, it’s possible that the old photos coming back with this bug were deleted but hadn’t yet been overwritten by iOS.
Whatever the root cause, it’s not an ideal situation for an OS update to restore long-deleted nudes and other images, especially when it’s an update from a supposedly privacy-focused company like Apple. People experiencing the bug are, unsurprisingly, bothered by old photos resurfacing.
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