All my pictures have disappeared for last 3 years.

[bobrrc]

Yesterday I went to look through my pictures that I took for my job for reference. To my dismay, al my pictures are missing going back to July 2021. I have checked the cloud, google back up and every other means I could think of to find them. I did not delete them. They just disappeared. They were they the night before and then next morning they are gone. Any idea on how or why and is there a way to retrieve them? 3 years of memories are gone now.

[realaud]

Check photos.google.com

[bobrrc]

I did that. Everything lost back to July 2021. All my back ups are gone from cloud and google back up. It's odd. They were there one day and gone the next. I checked deleted photos and its empty, archived is empty. If I had accidentally deleted the photos they would still be in the deleted photo file.

[realaud]

Just curious, did anyone have access to your phone? It's really odd that not only the photos on your phone, but in the cloud are missing. The only way for that to happen is if someone went to the Google photos app and deliberately deleted all of it and then either emptied the trash, or it happened more than 30 days ago

[JLo33]

Pretty much.
There isn't an instance where the most recent photos would have been deleted as well, but to have recent and last three years is something I have not heard of yet. The one thing I have noticed through my connected android devices is that certain data such as contacts and photos can be erased from another device, but both have to have access to your Google Account and have to be synced to the cloud.

[realaud]

when did you notice they disappeared? before or after your last phone back up? They may be savable if you restore your last backup.

[bobrrc]

The most recent phone update was on May 19, 2024 The photos were there after the update. Everything is saved to the cloud and through my gmail account. Everything is gone going back to July 2021. I use the phone link on my computer to access my pictures for copying to job files. I would have known if I saved 3 years of pictures or deleted them. I checked the phone memory and photos I only have 82 photos in that are recent.

[realaud]

I'm sorry for the loss of your photos. I have no idea what could have caused that, but losing three years, but not everything is a bit odd, isn't it? I've always been paranoid about digital photos, so I have backups in several different places. Having worked as the defacto IT person when I worked, and in the early days of computing, I'm a big proponent of multiple backups and often tell people if it's important to you, back it up more than once. Tech fails, stuff happens.

[tb86573]

This exact thing has happened to me were you able to find a fix?

[bobrrc]

I have a Samsung tablet. But its always next me at home. No one else has access to my phone.