Now that iOS 18 is available in public beta, this could be the perfect opportunity for you to try it out—though you might still want to hold off until the final release. In any event, there are a few new features in this most recent iOS 18 beta, one of which is a practical method for recovering images.
This beta, according to MacRumors, adds a “Recovered” album to the Photos app’s Utilities area. Any images or movies recovered on your iPhone that aren’t already in your photo library will be stored in this album.
You may assume that every image on your smartphone is in your primary photo library, but occasionally, images and videos might become caught in limbo due to many reasons, such as database corruption, improper saving of an image or video by third-party apps, or other problems.
It’s those images that this folder is for, and you’ll be given the option to restore or delete any images or videos that appear in your Recovered album. Note, however, that you’ll only see this album if there are photos or videos on your device that aren’t already in your photo library – if there’s nothing to recover then the Recovered album won’t be present.
Find lost photos and keep deleted ones gone in new IOS 18
The emergence of this Recovered album feature might have been prompted by a database corruption issue in iOS 17.5, which caused previously deleted photos to resurface for some users. With this new album, it’s likely that any repeat of that bug would see the images appear in the Recovered album, rather than in your main photo library – so, as well as helping you to recover lost photos, the feature could also ensure that any photos you delete stay deleted.
If you’d like to give this feature a try for yourself, you can check the iOS 18 public beta. But note that this still isn’t a finished or stable release, so we’d recommend waiting until the final release, which will likely land in September.