[Isuckatcode]

Just want to add a recent experience I had on this issue. I accidentally deleted a bunch of photos on my Mac (including from "recently deleted") and didn't realize it deletes it from my emtire iCloud photo library. In a state of panic, I contacted apple and they were able to restore all the photos that were "permanently deleted " from the last 60 days. This surprised me quite a bit as I was not expecting them to get them back. Makes me think if any pictures on the cloud are truly deleted.

[radicaldreamer]

Deleted files are kept in a hidden “expunged” folder both on device and (presumably) in the Cloud for up to 40 days pending actual deletion.

You can sometimes recover “deleted” files and media by dumping the entire phone and recovering files via the expunged folder for iCloud Drive and iCloud Photo Library — these were already deleted from the “Recently Deleted” folder.