Couldn't see older photos/videos in the Photo app.
Reminder for any iOS user that needs instant iCloud Photos backups (instead of manual monthly), get a Mac Mini, enable the Photos app, disable optimize for storage and keep it on to keep your memories safe.
Always check the recently deleted folder on the Mac every month since iCloud by design is a two-way sync and not a backup, unlike most clouds that are one-way upload (doesn't touch your local files).
Cold storage backup every month using the photos on the Mac should be easier as well.
While that might be Apple's "official" solution, there's a major caveat: the Photos app doesn't support storing the Photos library on a networked disk. This forces you to either fit your entire library on your Mac's internal storage or use a directly connected external disk with no network involved.
To overcome this limitation, I developed a MacOS app that creates a full backup of your Photos library. You can safely store this backup on any external storage like a NAS, network drive, internal disk, or external disk. Check it out here: https://ibeni.net
Compared to the "iCloud Photos Downloader," which scrapes data from iCloud, my app uses the official Apple Photokit APIs to back up your photos. This method is more reliable and efficient.
That’s part of the reason I always opt for the highest possible storage on my main MacBook whenever upgrading - to set Optimize=off for Photos and iCloud. Last upgrade was the 8TB M1. And then I connect that to a local NAS Time Machine backup every few days.
Reminder for any iOS user that needs instant iCloud Photos backups (instead of manual monthly), get a Mac Mini, enable the Photos app, disable optimize for storage and keep it on to keep your memories safe. Always check the recently deleted folder on the Mac every month since iCloud by design is a two-way sync and not a backup, unlike most clouds that are one-way upload (doesn't touch your local files).
Cold storage backup every month using the photos on the Mac should be easier as well.