Claude Code found 145,763 photos I permanently deleted from my iPhone.
Three years of deleted photos and videos still sitting in a hidden cache. Any app with file access can read them.
I plugged my iPhone into my MacBook to run a backup. Claude Code was doing the security audit from my last post and flagged a directory I wasn't even looking for.
PhotoData/Thumbnails. Over 146,000 files. Photos, videos, screenshots. Every single one was something I deleted.
Photos from 2023, 2024 and 2025. The ones I deleted the second after taking them. The ones I cleared from Recently Deleted. The ones I deleted three separate times because I wanted to be sure they were gone. All still there.
Passport photo I took for a visa application in 2023.
Screenshots of my bank app with full account numbers visible.
Private photos I sent someone and immediately deleted after a breakup.
Screenshot of my crypto seed phrase I took temporarily in 2022.
Photo of my ID and credit card I took to remember the numbers and deleted 5 seconds later.
Screenshots of my ex's private Instagram stories I saved and permanently deleted in 2023.
Some were 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 Recently Deleted. It keeps a compressed copy in a Spotlight search index cache so your phone can find things when you search. Apple never clears it. Not after 30 days. Not after a year. Never.
They told you it was permanently deleted. It wasn't.
I checked which apps on my phone had Files and Folders access. 23 apps. Weather apps. QR code scanners. PDF readers. A flashlight app I downloaded in 2022. Any one of them could have been reading every photo I ever deleted this entire time.
Went from 23 apps to 3 in about two minutes.
Full step by step below. Takes 2 minutes. Save it so you don't lose it and send it to anyone with an iPhone.
Readers added context they thought people might want to know
The author is posting AI-generated engagement bait text with various random claims of deleted photos or videos on a daily basis.
1. x.com/coolerwave/sta… - "BREAKING: Claude Code found 12,847 photos of my face on my iPhone
2. x.com/coolerwave/sta… - "Claude Code found 214,856 photos and videos I permanently deleted
Oct 24, 2026 · 8:16 PM UTC
Harden your iPhone today with Claude: lock out spyware, the government and Big Brother (Full guide)
nitter.cf/coolerwave/status/2115…
The fact that a 2022 flashlight app had access to my deleted passport photos and crypto seed phrases is genuinely terrifying. Deleting the Recently Deleted folder means nothing if there's a hidden cache.
Can it mass delete all my texts to thousands of different people? I’m too lazy to do it manually. Oh, and can it. Grab all of my photos and put them somewhere else so I don’t have to keep paying for iCloud?
genuine question: were those 23 apps on the iPhone or on the mac? because iOS doesn’t really have a “Files and Folders” permission macOS does. if it’s the mac, that changes the whole fix
How much space was it taking on the phone? I feel like I have deleted so much from my phone and there's still like less than 50 GB available. It's a 256 GB iPhone.
@mysk_co Any insight into this? It was community noted, but with the surge in false and misleading community notes, it's hard to understand the accuracy of either claim.
