Claude Code found every photo i "permanently deleted" from my iPhone.
almost 4 years of photos and videos sitting in a hidden cache on my
device. any app with file access can read them.

plugged my iPhone into my MacBook for a backup. had Claude Code running
a security scan from my last post. it flagged something i never asked
it to check. a directory called PhotoData/Thumbnails with over 152,000
files. photos, videos, screenshots. all stuff i deleted.

2022. 2023. 2024. 2025. photos i deleted within a second of taking them.
photos i went into Recently Deleted and cleared manually. photos i
deleted twice because i didn't trust the first time. all still there.

what was sitting in that cache:

a passport photo for a visa application in 2023
bank app screenshots with full account numbers visible
private photos i sent someone and deleted the same night after a breakup
a crypto seed phrase screenshot i took "for a minute" in 2022
my ID and credit card side by side, deleted 10 seconds later
my ex's private instagram stories i saved and "permanently deleted"
in 2024

152,417 files. some at full resolution. all organized by date going
back to 2021.

when you delete a photo on iPhone, iOS removes it from your camera roll
and your Recently Deleted folder. but it keeps a compressed copy in a
Spotlight search index cache. that's how your phone finds photos when
you type a word in search. Apple never clears it. not after 30 days.
not after a year. they told you it was permanently deleted. it wasn't.

checked which apps on my phone had Files and Folders access. 19 apps.
weather apps. QR scanners. PDF readers. a flashlight app from 2021.
any of them could've been reading every photo i ever "deleted" this
whole time.

went from 19 apps to 3 in about a minute.

full step by step is below. takes 2 minutes. bookmark it so you don't
lose it and send it to anyone with an iPhone.