How to Recover Lost Photos in iPhone Camera Roll after iOS 5 Update

Lost all your photos in iPhone’s camera roll after installing latest iOS update? Thousands of users are complaining to have lost pictures from iPhone 4 and iPhone 4S’ camera roll after installing iOS 5 or iOS 5.0.1 and syncing with latest iTunes software. Don’t panic! Follow the instruction below to restore deleted photos in iPhone.

Actually, the photos are not lost; they are simply not showing up in your camera roll due to some strange reason or a small bug that Apple will likely address in immediate software updated, probably in iOS 5.0.2.

Check if photos actually exists in iDevice

The instructions listed below will only work if your photos ‘actually’ exist on your iPhone but do not show up in the camera roll. To verify that pictures exist, check the graph at the bottom of iTunes. If it shows some occupied storage space, you can have a sigh of relief. Yes, you’re right! The photos can now be recovered.

Step 1: Download and install iExplorer, a free Windows and Mac utility that lets you access your iPhone, iPad in the same way you’d access a flash drive.

Step 2: Connect your iPhone or iPad to the PC or Mac via USB cable.

Step 3: Launch iExplorer, the program will detect your device and open a Windows Explorer-like view giving you access to all files and folders.

Step 4: To locate your missing photos, navigate to Media/DCIM/xyzAPPLE directory (where xyz are numbers). Copy them to your desktop (drag and drop will work) as a secondary backup. If pictures are not available under these directories, they cannot to recovered.

Step 5: Delete the following four files. We recommend you to take the backup of these files as well. If your device is jailbroken, do not follow Step 5, follow Step 6 instead.

/Media/DCIM/.MISC/Info.plist
/Media/PhotoData/MISC/DCIM_APPLE.plist
/Media/PhotoData/Photos.sqlite
/Media/PhotoData/PhotosAux.sqlite

Note: The file PhotosAux.sqlite may or may not be available on every device. It is generated if you’re using places feature in the camera roll.

Some users may not locate /DCIM/.MISC/Info.plist file. Skip past that file and follow the rest of the directions and it should still restore your photos in the camera roll.

Step 6: If your device is jailbroken, iExplorer will take you in ‘root’ view. Just delete the following four files (backup is always good and recommended).

/private/var/mobile/Media/PhotoData/.MISC/Info.plist
/private/var/mobile/Media/PhotoData/MISC/DCIM_APPLE.plist
/private/var/mobile/Media/PhotoData/Photos.sqlite
/private/var/mobile/Media/PhotoData/PhotosAux.sqlite

Step 7: Close iExplorer, unplug your USB cable, and then reboot your iPhone.

After the reboot, navigate to the Photos app and check your Camera Roll. It should re-index all of your photos in it. Let me know, it it worked for you or not.