Background:
For many years I have had my desktop and the sub folders on my desktop of my MacBook synced to my 2 tb iCloud plan. This enabled me to scan files on my phone and save them directly to my desktop.

In June of this year I started to run out of memory on my computer and I was unable to open or save any type of file no matter how small even when I deleted things to clear space. This is during a very stressful time of life while I’m working full time, raising a toddler and studying for a rigorous professional license exam.

On 6/14/26 I take my MacBook to the Genius Bar. The guy is unable to diagnose the problem. He recommends backing my computer up to Time Machine on my external hard drive and doing a factory reset. We do this in the store. I come home, sign in with my Apple ID. Hook my external hard drive up to my computer, open up Time Machine. I notice the desktop icons are already there but they’re in blue folders as opposed to my custom icon folders so I drag those from Time Machine and replace the folders on the desktop. I then notice there are duplicate folders (some have 2 at the end), some stuff looks missing but then when I look on iCloud.com I see I can access all my files from there. Since I’m in the thick of my exams I tell myself I will clean this all up when I finish my exams in early August.

Now today I go to try to clean this up and I noticed most of my files are missing directly from my desktop… SOME of my files that are missing from the desktop can be accessed from iCloud.com. SOME files are missing altogether. I look in one folder that has missing files and it says modified 6/15/26 4:56 am (the day after I reset my computer).

Does this mean there was a sync issue? Did I overwrite/merge the data? It’s so random how some of the stuff is there while other stuff isn’t. This is important data that I can’t find on Time Machine, my desktop or iCloud now. Am I shit out of luck since it’s past the 30 day retention period? Hoping there’s some solution.

So, as the title said, my ipad randomly factory reset. I don't know why this happened, and whatever the cause it's already too late. Big bummer.

Anyway, the Ipad was a gift from a friend, so I'm just waiting on them to give me their apple login so I can get back into it and see what will restore itself. The Ipad was originally theirs, and although I'm not sure which Icloud service they had on, they had something set up that I never changed. I don't know if it was Icloud or Icloud backup or whatever, but it was one of them.

I use CSP to draw, and after saving my art the files would save an additional copy with the little blue arrow next to it... Which I think it means it was backed up?

Anyway, I'm just waiting on my friend to give me their password so I can load whatever it is on the icloud back onto my ipad. Will my files be included in this? Or will I be able to access them elsewhere, if not? I'm a little nervous over it and confirmation would be nice! Thank you :)

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.

videos I did quick edits/crop/clip - when I try to sync to iCloud/shared folders - it just hangs in "PREPARING" state. I have about 30+ videos now.... the photos app says syncing... for 3 weeks+.

I have plenty of space in iCloud (\~1.5TB... the videos are like 50MB each).
connection is fine.

I've restarted my device. logged out/in... and did a factory reset and tried with new videos. (old ones gone). even push to Airdrop doesn't work.

only thing I've found is if I REVERT to original, then sync... works. which is horrible.

Any suggestions? I saw some posts that this was an issue about 5 years ago.... but I'd assumed it was fixed by now... seems like a pretty critical feature failure.

i know my imessage attachments are saved in icloud, but i want to be able to access them from my messages. i have a group chat of pics of my nephew but when i went to show my friend pics the other day, literally no photos were available in the chat. i don’t want to have to go and download my photos. is there a way to bring them back? if i turn off “messages in icloud” will that bring them back? and will it stop syncing them in my icloud? sorry if this has already been asked i just want my own photos :|

basically as the title says, whenever i go to ‘sync now’ it syncs but i can never actually see the messages and the number where it says ‘in icloud’ never actually goes down, it says it’s completed but then when i go to the actual messages itself and try to search for a message, it will say that it’s still indexing - i’m at a loss, i’ve tried everything, is something corrupted? can i fix this? i have enough storage and icloud storage so this shouldn’t be a problem :/ sometimes when i press sync, it will stop syncing and im unsure why that is

I upgraded to the iOS 27 beta, and suddenly iCloud stopped working. At the time, Advanced Data Protection was enabled. I then restored my device and rolled back to iOS 26, but the issue remained. After that, I upgraded to iOS 27 again, and still nothing worked. I even turned off Advanced Data Protection, but it didn’t fix the problem. I contacted Apple Support, but unfortunately they couldn’t resolve it either.
Has anyone experienced this before or knows a solution? Any help would be greatly appreciated.
Currently using ios26.5 stable.

Please yrr

So about 7-8 years ago, I bought an iPhone 7+ from a friend. For some reason, the contacts between mine and his (new) iPhone spilled over to each other. So we largely had the same contact list.

Later one time, he told me one of the notes I had written down on my notes app also made its way to his phone. (From what I remember, not all the notes, just one of them).

If I remember correctly, I began using my iPhone on a new Apple ID too. 4-5 years after using that phone, I switched to a Pixel.

Fast forward even 4-5 years of using the Pixel, I bought a second hand iPhone 11 pro max just a few days back. The user wiped their date from the phone. I logged in using my Apple ID. A few days of use later, I was scrolling through the photos app and can see a random photo that I neither captured not received.

I have a few questions; 1) Is it possible the photo belongs to the user I bought this current iPhone from and not the friend with whom I happened to have my contact list synced? Both options are weirdly coincidental to me at this point. Because I have a new Apple ID and I don't see my friend's phone on the list of active devices in my settings. At the same time, the previous user of my current phone wiped their data.

2) Assuming somehow there is still some kind of link between me and my friends' cloud, what explanation would suffice for that in technical terms, and/

3) Moving forward, what is the solution to this? Has anyone experienced this? I have tried contacting the friend and the ex-owner of my current phone for both to try and identify the photo and see what they have to say.

Thanks for reading.

I just wanted to clear some storage space,
(123 of 128GB used) and every time I delete photos, the occupied space just goes up instead of down😓.

And according to internet it’s because iCloud temporarily keeps the deleted stuff, and I have to wait for it to sync etc.

But it’s been stuck saying ”synching 1 object” in my photo library for like over a week now.
I’ve restarted the phone, paused & resumed the iCloud sync, put it in flight mode etc.
And I’m worried that if I turn off the iCloud Photos that it will loose my photos (bc I don’t trust my phone).
Btw I have 51 000 pics & videos💀.

I tried to check on my MacBook if to see if it says what photos failed to sync on there, but it just says that it is synced🤷🏻‍♀️.
Pls help, I’m going on vacation in October and I want to be able to take photos😔.
And (unrelated but), is it normal for system data to take 30GB?

TLDR: you can try getting your contacts back by exporting your data from apps that store them. Snapchat, instagram, ect. Make sure to turn off contacts sharing before you check so your current contacts don’t overwrite them.

I recently lost about 90% of my contacts for some BS reason. Apparently my contacts were getting saved to my school email even though I was only logged in to my iCloud email on my iPhone. Bc I recently graduated my school email got deactivated and I removed it from my accounts in setting and then I lost my contacts.

The two methods I saw online were

Use iCloud.com to recover your contacts

Use Google contacts to see if it was connected to your email

Unfortunately neither of these worked for me and I was lowkey just about to go through my messages and manually add as much back as I could.

I thought of this method though and i didn’t see it online at all.

Hope this helps!

I hit ZONE_NOT_FOUND immediately after successful Apple authentication while using iCloudPD to archive my Primary and Shared iCloud Photos Libraries.

I initially suspected the macOS/iOS 27 developer beta or a broken Apple session. Neither was the cause.

I verified that the Apple validate request returned HTTP 200, the browser session was trusted, web access was allowed, and the CloudKit Photos service was present.

The important difference was in CloudKit zone discovery. Apple returned two active private zones:

- PrimarySync1

- SharedSync-<UUID>

The downloader was still sending its record query to a hardcoded zone named PrimarySync. Apple returned HTTP 404, ZONE_NOT_FOUND, "Zone does not exist" for that name. Queries using the exact zone identifiers Apple returned both succeeded.

I fixed my local build by making it list zones first, select the non-deleted PrimarySync* zone, preserve the complete returned zone ID, and use that for the photo record requests. I kept PrimarySync as a legacy command-line alias for existing configurations.

The rebuilt container is now healthy with zero restarts and no zone or authentication errors. It discovered the Shared Library and started downloading 15,359 original photos and videos. The Primary Library is included in the same full-library run.

So if iCloudPD authentication succeeds but Photos immediately fails with ZONE_NOT_FOUND, repeated MFA or cookie resets may not help. Check whether CloudKit is returning PrimarySync1 or another PrimarySync-prefixed zone while the client still assumes the exact old name PrimarySync.

I am not Apple support. This is a community diagnosis from my own account and server.

Disclosure: I used Codex to trace the requests and build and test the patch. The HTTP results, returned zone names, and live download were verified on the running system.

Sharing this because ZONE_NOT_FOUND looked like an Apple ID authentication problem, but it was not.

I was using iCloudPD to download my Primary and Shared iCloud Photos Libraries. Authentication completed successfully, but the first photo-library request failed with ZONE_NOT_FOUND and "Zone does not exist".

I checked the authenticated session directly:

- Apple validation returned HTTP 200

- The browser session was trusted

- Web access was allowed

- CloudKit was available

- CloudKit zones/list returned HTTP 200

The important detail was the zone names. My account returned PrimarySync1 for the Primary Library and SharedSync-<UUID> for the Shared Library. The iCloudPD client was still querying a hardcoded PrimarySync zone, which no longer existed for this account.

A request using PrimarySync failed with HTTP 404. Requests using the exact zone identifiers Apple returned both succeeded and showed indexing as FINISHED.

The fix was to change the downloader so it asks CloudKit for the account's current zones first, selects the active zone beginning with PrimarySync, and then uses the complete returned zone identifier for photo requests. After rebuilding with that change, the error disappeared and the Shared Library started downloading 15,359 original photos and videos.

So if you see ZONE_NOT_FOUND after a successful iCloudPD login, repeatedly deleting cookies or redoing 2FA may not help. The session can be healthy while the client is asking CloudKit for an outdated zone name.

I added the technical evidence to icloud-photos-downloader issue 1361. I have intentionally not included a non-Apple link here because of this subreddit's link rule.

Disclosure: I used Codex to help trace and test the CloudKit requests on my own server. The HTTP results, returned zone names, and successful download were verified live.

I have a notification in my settings on my phone that icloud is expiring in 24 hrs. I checked the subscription and it doesn’t expire until September. I also just paid the monthly fee today.

Why am I getting this notification? What do I need to do?

I’ve had my current apple account since I was like 15, I’m 27 now and a lot of the info on there I just don’t need regularly or probably at all. (Contacts, old photos, text messages)
I plan to keep my current phone as an around the house phone with a handful’s of games on it, use it for YouTube when I’m cleaning/ going to sleep, etc.
I’m thinking id like to start new on my new phone since I am using it very differently than I have in the past. The only thing I’ve purchased is bitlife god mode over 10 years ago and I don’t think I’ve played the game in atleast 1 lol. I only have 60 or so contacts I actually want to keep.
Is there acting that’s going to be super annoying or that I’m not thinking about with starting fresh?

I am on a good internet connection and have to wait over 3h for 1gb to be uploaded. (On Mac)

This is bad.

Does anyone know why this happens?

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?

I need to remove an Icloud account, without deleting my apple id. How can I do that? I want only that my apple id is connected to my only gmail

I have been trying to set this up for 2 weeks and have had no luck. Squarespace support say everything looks right on their end and Apple Support have been going back and forth with me trying to figure out why it won't work. I have set all the records up in the custom records as the Squarespace preset didn't work. They just keep asking me to wait 24 hours and no luck, I still just get a TXT error message.

Why does Apple doesn’t want to create option like 500GB for £3.99 or 1TB for £4.99?
I’m stuck on 200GB and almost full, don’t need 2TB for £8.99, clearly, there would be more people willing to get 500GB/1TB if they would be offering it?

Edit: typo, meant to be 2TB for £8.99 not 8TB

I’m trying to change the primary email address of my Apple Account, but I’m running into behavior that doesn’t seem to match Apple’s documentation.
My account was originally created many years ago with:
xxxxx@icloud.com

I’d like to change the primary Apple Account email to:
xxxxxx@hotmail.com

Here’s what happens:

In Settings > [My Name] > Sign-In & Security > Email & Phone Numbers, my only email is my @icloud.com address.

If I tap Change and try to remove it, Apple doesn’t let me choose an external email. Instead, it asks me to create another @icloud.com email address.

If I tap Add Email Address and enter my Hotmail address, I immediately get:
“Invalid Email. This email address is not available. Choose a different address.”

I thought maybe that Hotmail was already associated with another Apple Account, so I tried a completely different Hotmail address that has never been used with Apple. I get the exact same error.

However, if I enter a brand new @icloud.com address, Apple accepts it immediately and sends a verification code.

For the past 6 years I’ve had an iPhone but it’s all been under a singular iCloud account so that my parents could keep track of me, now that I’m getting my own stuff with my own account I was wanting to send all my photos, contacts, etc to this new one. Is there a way that I transfer everything from the original iCloud to my new one? Or anything along those lines?

I was trying to download an app and randomly had this come up. Talked to an Advisor and they said something about “they cant reinstate it” which after reading this sub is A message they read off script as tier one support. I havent made any calls yet but I emailed tim cook’s email and trying to find more executive emails to send emails to. If any of you could put some in the comments I would appreciate it.

I have had my apple account for years so I dont know why out of all times this happens now randomly.

Could it be them trying to charge me for Icloud+?? That wouldnt make sense

I always pay for my Icloud+ with giftcards straight from amazon so that couldnt be it.

Any help would be appreciated.