Apple appears to store deleted iCloud notes on its servers

Security researchers have discovered that notes deleted from an iCloud account persist on Apple’s servers. It is not the first time that it has been possible to recover deleted content on Apple’s servers.

The method to recover deleted notes was discovered by the Russian security company Elcomsoft, who published a blog post about it. Normally, deleted iCloud notes should be removed from Apple’s servers within 30 days, but Elcomsoft found that this is not always the case.

Using a software tool developed by Elcomsoft itself, many notes synced with iCloud were found to be recoverable, even though they should have been deleted within 30 days. The oldest deleted notes the Russian security company could find were from 2015.

It’s not the first time Apple has been confronted with deleted content synced with iCloud, but can still be found later. The same happened with deleted photos and deleted browsing history, also discovered by Elcomsoft. After discovery, Apple made sure that the problems with the permanent removal of the content were fixed. The fact that deleted content keeps reappearing on Apple’s servers means that questions remain about what other data is on the servers unsolicited, according to Elcomsoft.