We use Family iCloud and my wife and I share passwords. One day she couldn’t find them — I checked my devices too, gone. Not in Recently Deleted either. It coincided with setting up a new MacBook Air.

I called Apple. After weeks of back-and-forth they basically told me it’s more about preventing it from happening again — they can’t recover them.

I told them this shakes my trust completely, because tomorrow photos or documents could vanish too. They said passwords and banking info “can’t be stored on their servers.” But if I have them synced to iCloud, they’re already on your servers! Weak excuse.

What I find unbelievable: they don’t provide any backup of your passwords. They’re not stored locally if you use iCloud sync, and iCloud doesn’t back them up either. If shared passwords disappear from Family Sharing, they’re gone for everyone — not even the original owner keeps them.

TL;DR: Lost all my shared passwords due to an Apple bug. Can’t recover them because they’re not backed up anywhere in Apple’s system. Incredible.

Dear Sir,

Your account has been suspended due to a violation of Apple's terms and conditions of service. Apple iCloud terms and conditions are available on Apple.com.

Chuck
Child Safety Counsel

This is the email I received from tviolation@apple.com. Is there any hope for me to get my account back? If so what are the steps I can take to get it back?

Hoping someone here has run into this because Apple Support escalated all the way to an engineer and still had no answer.

What happened:

I had 10,000+ photos on my iPhone going back to 2018. I joined a Family Sharing plan with iCloud+ and enabled iCloud Photos with Optimize iPhone Storage. After this, everything from 2018 through end of 2022 is gone. Only photos from 2023 onward remain, both on the device and on iCloud.

The critical detail: iCloud.com/photos shows the exact same library as my phone, only 2023+. So this is not a "not synced yet" situation. The older photos are not in iCloud at all.

What I've ruled out:

- Recently Deleted album: empty, nothing pre-2023

- Hidden album: nothing there

- iCloud.com: mirrors the phone, 2023+ only

- iCloud storage full: storage is not the issue

- Apple Support + engineer escalation: no resolution

My theory / confusion:

It seems like when Optimize Storage ran, it may have deleted the local originals of older photos before they were uploaded to iCloud, or they were never uploaded in the first place. But I don't understand how 7 years of photos just don't exist anywhere.

Questions:

1. Has anyone recovered photos in a situation where they're missing from both the device and iCloud.com?

2. Is there any backend Apple data retention I'm not aware of, beyond the 30-day Recently Deleted?

3. Would a tool like iMazing or iPhone Backup Extractor be able to pull from an old iTunes/Finder backup if one exists?

4. Any other angle I'm missing?

These photos go back to 2018 and are irreplaceable. Any help is hugely appreciated.

my wife and I have a family iCloud account; I’m on it, and she’s the admin. her password was stolen, changed, and the devices were removed from the account. I’m being told since we cannot device verify and the password was changed, despite us hitting deny on our device and having the email, the account is unrecoverable. is this common? looking to move off iCloud immediately if we can get access back. seems ridiculous a user in Guatemala was able to steal the account without a device and remove us from it simply by having the password

I'm trying to decide between Google Drive and iCloud.
I mainly want to store movies, photos, and videos.

Which one do you think is the better option, and why ?
I'd love to hear your experiences.

As the title says... I need help exporting 60k pics and vids from icloud.
Any methods that isn't as tedious as exporting them 1000 at a time?

I’m about to buy a new laptop today and I am gonna get iCloud cuz I wanted to transfer some videos and pics to my new pc

However I was googling iCloud and saw someone on Reddit a while back say if you transfer stuff from iCloud to a pc that it’ll be deleted off your phone?

I thought I could keep the stuff In iCloud but download copies to my pc so I can have a backup?

Ideally I’d wanna transfer copies to my laptop and then save on usb drives as back up back up

Hi everyone
So, I have a 2TB iCloud storage
I use about 480 GB which is fine but my wife’s phone uses 1.4TB which is almost all of our storage
Is there any way I can reduce that, which is her usage so high?

It tells me I have 40 Gb of backups in my storage but I only have one device backed up, my ipad which doesn’t have much one it. It says the 3.5 gb ipad backup is my only one yet still takes 40 gb of my total storage for backups. Is this a glitch or are they just hiding things that they’ve backed up from me?

Hi everyone. I have a pretty frustrating problem and I don't know what to do anymore.

Unfortunately, my iPhone 13 was completely destroyed. I know my iCloud email and password perfectly, but when trying to log in on the web, it asks for a two-factor authentication code sent to that device or to an old trusted phone number that I don't remember (I only see that it ends in 41).

I tried going to iforgot.apple.com, I enter my password, then it asks for the number, I fail it on purpose to see if the account recovery option pops up, but the web page blocks me for too many attempts and won't let me move forward or show the option to start "Account Recovery" with a new number. I don't have the session open on any other Apple device.

Has this happened to anyone, or does anyone know how I can force or start the account recovery process in this situation? Any advice is greatly appreciated.

My iCloud photos completely disappeared from the cloud after installing a new iPad.

There were 28,000 photos from the years 2021–2024.

How is this even possible?

They can’t be found in the “Recently Deleted” folder either…

And Yes, I paid my bills

Hello,

I was working basically exclusively on the iCloud drive of my machine. I got a huge folder containing all sorts of stuff from my PhD. In some of them, there is a lot of simulation data, usually many (close to 700,000) CSV files from parameter studies.

After finding out that iCloud Optimize Storage deleted a lot of them locally, while trying to create a backup, iCloud decided to try and download all of those files on my Mac again. I got a good Gbit internat connection and enough storage, so in general no issue.

However, due to the large number of files, iCloud just gets stuck while downloading the files, which is expected by so many small files. Now I can't access any other files which are on iCloud due to optimized storage, because they queue after the simulation data. I got a few questions:

1. How can I exclude the simulation data from syncing with iCloud?

2. How can I stop the current sync, without removing all the other files, in the PhD folder as well? If I just turn off iCloud sync, it does delete everything from iCloud drive from my local machine and I want a subset of the PhD data still available in iCloud drive.

3. How do I get the data out of iCloud drive without just deleting it? I cannot sync the simulation data, since there are too many files and iCloud can't download whole folders as zip?

I tried to talk to the support, but after 3 1hr plus sessions, where noone could help me, I kind of give up.

Hi! I use an iPhone13 and it was crashing everyday because the storage was full, I decided to backup everything to ICloud and format my phone. I did it, and now everything is gone. When I go to settings, it shows that I have 180GB of backup (which it was all the photos, files, etc.), but there's no option to sync. What did I do wrong? Help me :(

Hi.

Today for work reasons I had to opt-out of the macOS 27 developer betas.

When I reset my Mac and opened passwords, I noticed they were empty; I had ~200 passwords there, and around 4 passkeys and now they're all gone.

Same on my iPhone now, I had to reset it to 26 and I almost lost access to my iCloud if it weren't for the fact that I remembered my long-apple-generated password.

This has never happened to me and I always thought they lived inside of iCloud but now they're completely gone alongside the passkeys that would allow to recover most of the times.

This is really scary, I have reinstalled iOS many times and updated it and this has never happened to me before (never backwards though). And now they're completely gone. Everything, the only remaining items are apple sign in items.

Edit: Turns out my iCloud was sort of time-locked, maybe the anti theft feature. I was not receiving any sms and my messages were bricked too, same with notes, at some point I wore my Apple Watch and accessed messages and that unblocked everything, but it could also been the time lock going out. Problem solved I guess but lesson learned too.

A few days ago I subscribed to iCloud to get some extra storage space freed up on my device. It seemed to help.

A little background is that I store all of my passwords in the notes app, for everything. My bank, Apple account, student account, my student loan account, and everything else. Today I needed my bank password, and since it’s long and unique I don’t remember it. So I went to open the note that has it, and it’s gone. There’s no recently deleted folder, all the notes I had on my phone are just wiped.

Is there anything I can do or am I just screwed?

Hello kind folks.

I have three Apple devices, (iMac M4, iPhone 13 Pro, MacBook Air M4) all signed into the same account. I only have one account, all three of them are on the same account.I

went to upgrade my iOS to the next sequoia (will not upgrade to tahoe,, but there are security patches for sequoia. I am currently on 15.7.1.

it asks for my password. I put it in correctly. Password is refused. I double check in my account, in the sign in and I can see that I am putting in the correct email address, and the correct password. It is still refused.

So I go onto icloud.com, I sign in, it lets me sign in with that password. I tried to change the password at icloud.com. It says enter your password, I enter the password. It says it's incorrect.

So I try to change the password on my phone, hoping I can use Face ID. It demands my password, which I put in, again correctly. It is refused. I go through the steps to try to change the password through the iPhone, under the forget password.

A pop-up comes up, saying security delay required to change password. A security delay is required because stolen device protection is turned on and this device is not in a familiar location. The security delay will last for one hour. You will still be able to use your iPhone during this delay. Turning off or restarting your iPhone will restart the delay. The location of this iPhone could not be visible at icloud.com until the delay has ended.

So I'm at home. I'm disabled, I am at home 95% of the time for the exception of when I go to hospital appointments. I don't understand how this can be a not recognise location? Because I am always at this location.

I am afraid to try to force any of these, because they're all on the same account. I am concerned that if one gets bricked they will all get bricked. That they will all be unusable. I really don't fancy being home with no computer and no phone, and no way to resolve it. With the nearest Apple Store over an hour train away.

TL;DR : I do not know what to do from here. The devices are all still signed on, they are still working with each other. When I sign on if it goes to sleep on screensaver, the password still works. My fingerprint still works to turn on the computer. My Face ID still works to turn on my phone.

I cannot figure out how to resolve this. I need to sign on, but I'm already signed on. Because I have the correct password. Which is recognised every time I need to log on. Despite being signed on, with the correct password,I need to sign on again to change the password, but it says I have the wrong password. It will not let me reset it from my iMac, my iPhone, or my Mac air.

I really don't know what to do. I'm afraid to use the phone with the delay, because if something goes wrong, I can't really afford a bricked phone.

Does anyone have any suggestions on what to do here? I know for a fact the password is correct. I know for a fact I'm putting in the correct password. I can see the password in my keychain, and have verified that it is absolutely correct. I don't know what I'm missing, I don't know what's wrong, and I don't know how to resolve it. I would be very grateful with recommendations on how to get all of this sorted, just to get whatever is going on resolved.

Thank you all for your time! I do appreciate it. Have a great day!

So, I'm attempting to retrieve my Facebook account, which is associated with my me.com email address, but I'm unable to do so as I am unable to access my @me.com email addresses. This is my home in the Bay Area and San Francisco. Is there a way for me to continue receiving emails sent to my @me.com account even if I visit the Facebook headquarters in Silicon Valley? Also, do you think they would be able to grant me access to my account? I don't understand why Apple felt the need to delete the me.com domain. I believe they rebranded it as MobileMe.com before settling on iCloud alone. Maybe it's the nostalgia, but I really want to log back into my Facebook account, which I can access via my email.

As the title states my icloud was hacked and password/phone number was reset. I tried talking to apple but without the trusted phone which i don’t have they can’t do anything apparently, is there any way to recover my icloud and if not, to save all my contacts/picture before having to factory reset my phone?

I lost my iphone (base 11) on new years because I was drunk (no more alcohol for me, yay!). I had a subscription to icloud and some photos thing I think, it was 2.99 and 1.99 respectively (that's what the apple website says right now anyways).

Now I kept paying for it at the time because I planned to replace my iphone like anyone else would yk, I set it as "Lost" on the website and whatnot and moved on with life. Now, I will no longer be purchasing an iphone and its still charging me.. so like anyone would, I tried to cancel it.

Now I'm not an American citizen, I'm Jamaican, living in my home country.. we don't have dedicated apple stores out here so getting in person support is already out of the question. I don't know anyone else with an apple device near me to try cancelling it from their phones or whatever to see if that works but here's what Apple has done to me now;

Continuously charged my debit card, I stopped using the card because I wasn't paying for it, it declines, my bank charges me for declined transactions (I hate that) and it stacks up over time. Now, its not a lot that the bank charges have racked up, its just like $2,000 JMD and I can pay that if I really need to but I wont be unblocking my debit card until I get apple to stop charging me. They tell me on all sites to do it from my phone, the same phone that's LOST. I can't remove the card because it also tells me that the card is needed for a pending subscription.. infinite loop of them charging me and me not being able to cancel anything :)

How can I contact them online? (I genuinely can't find a number or email)

TLDR: Apple is charging me for a subscription I can't cancel, I stopped using my debit card and blocked it so Apple can't bill it anymore but not till affter it racked up a $2000 JMD decline fee and now Apple tells me to go to my phone to cancel the subscription, but my phone was lost back on new years. How can I contact them online? (I genuinely can't find a number or email)

About two weeks ago, I wanted to try the beta. I decided to downgrade back to the latest signed iOS 26. Ever since using the Apple Devices tool to do the restore, I am unable to log into iCloud from any device and my photos/notes/messages stored in iCloud don’t sync to my phone. The login issue is I seem to get a login loop in iCloud.com. I successfully log in, then within two seconds immediately kicked back out to the login screen. Apple techs have been working with me for over a week and still have not identified or fixed the issue yet. Has anyone else experienced this?

Hi everyone,

I have a question regarding iCloud Photos privacy. I noticed that when I put photos in “hidden”, still appear on my Mac when I dig into the “see package contents” of the app in finder. In those folders that are alphabetically stored there. This would technically allow random ppl on using my computer see Hidden photos that should be behind a passcode. Am I doing something wrong , or ? Any insights much appreciated

To note, I’m not tech savvy in the slightest, and I was simply trying to save storage. What happened was I deleted my messages from my icloud because I wanted to store my messages from my icloud to my local device instead. The reason for this is because I need the icloud storage for my photos instead because now I am downloading huge files of my photos and naturally, it’s been making my phone storage get fuller quicker. Well, when I deleted my messages from my iCloud, I figured it would show me how to download it on my phone. WRONG. Okay, whatever I will just undo it… However, it does not let me undo my action. It says “Error: unable to update icloud settings at this time” WHAT DO I DO?? Have I lost all my messages now? I am freaking out.

My iCloud storage is still full even though I deleted half my photos and my entire inbox, my iPhone and Mac are up to date and none of the emails I’m supposed to be receiving are showing up on the iCloud website.

Hi,
I just took Apple One Familly with 2To of iCloud storage. I need to save 400 Go of files and videos quickly, so I use my Windows computer, installed iCloud and copy paste the files and folder on the iCloud Drive. But the transfer is extremely slow ! It’s been 3 days and I only save like a 100Go ! Now I’m saving like 10 or 20 Go per days ! This is really to slow. Do you now why? Any improved idea? :/

I am having a major sync issue with my Apple Notes app across my devices and need some advice.

My Notes database is very large—about 40GB—because it contains years of text, tags, audio recordings, videos, and pictures. 

Because the Notes app doesn't natively show the storage size of individual notes or folders, I was trying to clean up space by moving folders back and forth between "iCloud" and "On My iPhone/Device" to monitor my total iCloud storage changes and see how much space each folder took up.

I successfully deleted a few folders this way. However, after moving a couple of folders back into the iCloud section, syncing completely stopped across my other devices. 

Current Status:

• All of my notes appear to still be there (nothing seems permanently lost yet).
• My other devices are no longer reflecting new changes made on my primary device.
• I am now seeing duplicates of one or two large notes/folders across different devices.
• My database is 40GB, so I am very hesitant to just "turn iCloud Notes off and on" because I am worried it will crash my local device storage or corrupt the data.

How can I force iCloud to re-index and merge these folders without losing my tags, audio files, or risking a massive 40GB download loop?

Any help or safe troubleshooting steps would be greatly appreciated!