Crane

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.