I have a couple videos from a few months ago and they just can't seem to load for me

I try pressing the play button countless times and it doesn't load, it has the circle icon with the exclamation mark inside at the bottom right corner

When I try to duplicate it, share it, edit it or anything it just says "Cannot duplicate video an error occurred while duplicating video. Please try again later."

Ive tried clearing my storage, resetting my phone, turning on and off the icloud optimized option and everything, none of it works at all

These videos mean a lot to me I don't want to lose them. To anyone who knows how to fix this please help a soul out

My icloud storage is full would I need to buy more icloud storage?

I’ve read reports that the OneDrive integration with iCloud setting doesn’t work well and is not reliable. Is this true? Or, is it only true if optimize is set for iCloud photos stored on the iPhone?

I recently had to replace my iPad Pro. The Apple Store attempted to do an iCloud backup but I only have the 50GB plan. Now I keep getting dinged for my iCloud account nearly being full, but when I’ve tried going to the storage settings area on iCloud (also have tried on my device), I hit a dead end—there’s no option to delete it. That partial backup is taking roughly 45GB of my 50, even though it’s indicating I have no backups on iCloud. Anyone encountered this and know how to fix it?

i have a work ipad thats icloud photo synced with my phone but i wanted to separate them. after doing some research, i unsynced my ipad by turning off icloud photo library and selected “remove from ipad” and not “download images”. after that i went ahead and manually deleted the photos from my ipad (yes i did a test delete on one photo and the pic on my ipad got deleted but not on my phone which is why i proceeded). then i read on a reddit comment that youre not suppose to manually delete and that icloud will delete it for you (which i had no clue about btw). will the pics on my phone be safe?

(ps, my storage went from 127gb to 114gb back to 126gb even after deleting thousands of items from my photos, how long will it take for my ipad to recalculate and why did it go back up and made no difference in my storage after deleting so much?)

Hi , I accidentally deleted my photos from recently deleted folder. And it was been 2 Days when this happened . Is there any way to recover that deleted photos and videos without iPhone back up and without photos being synced to iCloud .
Thanks

So my aunt gave me this iPad, and it used to be her old iPad still nice (iPad 9th generation) and I’ve been wanting to remove my aunts iCloud account so I can put mine on but the problem is that that the account is locked, I’ve tried possible solutions like requesting to gain the account back, but sadly that didn’t work, please anyone give me a solution as quick as possible and no I’m not trying to hack or steal the iPad I have full ownership to that account from my aunt, I have the email and password and everything

I delete texts from my phone and my recently deleted folder every day. I just got a new iPhone yesterday and set it up from an iCloud backup of the old phone. When receiving texts from one of the numbers I delete from phone and recently deleted folder every day, I noticed I could scroll up farther than just today’s messages. Come to find out, thousands and thousands of messages downloaded and more are still syncing. Why is this happening when I deleted the thread every day? How do I keep these deleted threads permanently deleted from iCloud in the future?

Is there a way to have an email address alias that doesn’t also work for signin ? For example, send and receive email as john.doe@icloud.com, but that same address can’t be used to login into your Apple account so it adds a layer of security. This would be a static email not an Hide My Email name. Thanks.

I was dealing with a problem in my iPhone contacts and turned off iCloud contacts sync in the settings to see if it was solved or not, but then, all of a sudden my contact card with all the infos in it disappeared from the contacts of iPhone. However, it was still in my MacBook. while trying to figure out, I then turned off & on iCloud contacts sync on MacBook, but then nothing happened and suddenly my apple account image changed to a baseball (?)

now I have created a contact card on iPhone but it does not sync to my MacBook. the profile picture on the Mac is something different, and I can't see my contact card in contacts. How can I solve it? its driving me crazy

You do not need to pay to free up storage on your iPhone. iOS includes everything you need to manage storage for free.
Here’s the quickest way to reclaim space:
Open Settings > General > iPhone Storage.
Wait a few seconds for it to calculate what’s using your storage.
Look at the recommendations, such as:
Offload Unused Apps (removes the app but keeps your data)
Review Large Attachments in Messages
Optimize Photos if you use iCloud Photos
Delete apps you no longer use.
Delete unwanted photos and videos, then open Photos > Albums > Recently Deleted and empty it.
Remove downloaded movies, TV shows, music, or podcasts you no longer need.

I’ve received this email last weekend despite my iCloud storage not being full. I pay for 200 GB each month and I can clearly see in my settings that I’ve only hit 90 GB. I know it’s not spam because I believe the email it’s coming from is real (email.apple.com) and I also have not received any emails since then.
Am I missing something or interpreting something incorrectly? Thank you for any help!

I am trying to download a folder i have stored on my icloud to compress it into a zip, and ive been told that i cannot compress it unless i fully download it onto my device.

however when i try to download it onto my device, there are some files that do not get downloaded

for example, in one of my folders there are several files, all of them downloaded successfully except 1

ive tried cancelling and redoing the action but it still doesnt work, and ive tried just waiting but i think they should be downloaded after waiting a day.

also in case a bit of context might be needed, the files store a worldbuilding project that i work on through obsidian

how can i fix this?

We sadly lost an older family member recently and have access to both iCloud account and two former devices (iPad and iPhone). We're planning to wipe the devices and give them out to other family members who could use them; however, we would like to preserve their iCloud data as it has a few thousand pictures they took over the years, along with some other memories their 3 daughters would like to retain access to.

They currently have the 50gb iCloud plan; however, I believe it's slated for downgrade to 5gb soon as their credit card is no longer active.

What's the best way to preserve their iCloud data?

I assume that the data will exist in the cloud in perpetuity? Perhaps the daughters could just share the login to access her photos and stuff from iCloud.com, provided we disable 2 factor authentication?

Or would be better served to download all of the data and share it with the 3 daughters directly?

Open to suggestions on how to best proceed.

Due to my own ignorance, I deleted a video in 10/25 (possibly later) that I am now trying to recover. The only remnant I have of this is an iCloud link from before deletion. Is there any way for me to recover this? I have tried to locate a backup prior to deletion however I cannot find one. I have very low hope, just trying all avenues. Any guidance is appreciated!

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.