Organizing photos on ipad

Is there any way for me to control the order in which photos appear within an album or during a slideshow? As far as I can tell, the photos are arranged in the order of when the photo was originally taken and I can't find any way to change that.

I tried renaming the photos in the alphabetical order of the way I want them to appear and then re-syncing but that had no effect.

Note: I am PC-based, not MAC.

iPhone OS 3.1.3

Posted on May 5, 2010 11:17 AM

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May 7, 2010 11:19 PM in response to Neil B.

iTunes sorts photos by their time stamp so they're basically sorted chronologically. There are programs available that will change a photo file's time stamp, but that's a rather tedious process. Mac users can use iPhoto to sort their photos which iTunes then follows. I don't know of any Windows program that does this. You can create albums with Adobe Photoshop Elements but it won't let you sort them within the albums. There are iPhone apps available that can take over the photo presentation and thus allow you to sort your photos through them. I don't know offhand if there are any exclusively iPad apps that do this yet.
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May 26, 2010 4:31 AM in response to Neil B.

Does anyone know any info on this issue yet?

This is quite frustrating and I really need my photos sorted by name or something more reasonable than going through 1000's of photos and changing time stamps.

Anyone have any contacts with the Apple Developers to have this issue added to a software update?
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May 26, 2010 5:03 AM in response to Alancito

I use ACDSee to sort my photos. It is a pain but it works. What I do is put all of the files in a folder, then I change the created date on all of the files to the same data/time. After that I rename the files in reverse alphabetical order so that they will be in the correct order on the iPad. I also normally delete the iPod photo cache folder before I sync the photos.
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Jun 14, 2010 4:42 PM in response to Neil B.

This is what works for me:
1. Download & install Windows Live Photo Gallery freeware to my Micro PC running XP,
2. Edit the original dates when the photos were taken in the order of what I want them to show in the folder and
3. Sync the folder back to iPad.

Message was edited by: iPad Dan
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Jun 21, 2010 2:25 PM in response to Neil B.

Using Windows 7 I was able to simply edit the properties/details/date taken parameter of the files within a folder and thereby got them to appear in the order of "date taken". No special software required. Just change the "date taken" and re-synch the ipad photos.
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Jun 21, 2010 2:42 PM in response to dgibb

I am an iPad to MBP user but I use Airsharing HD on the ipad to transfer files, I am unclear if it will work on a Windows machine but as the app provides a network address I think it should, this allows the iPad to show up as an external HD, moving files over a home network by wifi is a simple drag and drop operation. All the sorting, editing and naming are done on the home computer, the folder is then dragged over as a complete item. The app allows single image views as well as a simple slide show feature.
All this keeps you well away from the mysterious ways of iPhoto !
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Apr 14, 2011 1:04 AM in response to Neil B.

hey you can use the Sortshots app.Its the best app for organizing photos on ipad.
whenever you'll transfer th epics to your ipad the sequence will not be changed. also it uses the power of tagging so you don't have to manage so many folders/albums.Simply tag your pics.Tapping on a tag provides instant results so that we can further refine our search with additional tags and keywords.
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Jul 8, 2011 2:03 PM in response to Neil B.

I have found a way to easily and quickly do this in Windows 7, if this helps anyone.


  1. have all the files you want in your slide show in one folder (in Windows).
  2. Number them in the order you want them to appear.
  3. View them in details mode, which will show you the date the photos were taken. Mostly likely they were taken at all different times.
  4. Select all photos.
  5. Right click on your first photo and choose properties
  6. On the Details tab, click on the link at the bottom that says "Remove Properties and Personal Information"
  7. In the next window that comes up, click on the button that says "remove the following properties from this file" then scroll down until you see "Date Taken" and then click the box beside it (if you want to remove any other information, click on those boxes as well). Then click OK. Because you had selected all photos it will remove all the chosen information from each of the photos.
  8. Then you can change the dates and times so they are all the same: Follow the instructions above starting with #4. When you get to the Details tab, click on the white space to the right of the Date Taken section (under origin). Either type the day you are doing these changes or choose it on the calendar that pops up. Don't worry about the time. Click ok. If you had all photos selected it will show that they were all taken at the same date and time.
  9. Now sync to your iPad. It will now play the photos in order.

Hope this helps!

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Sep 8, 2011 7:56 AM in response to Neil B.

Get Photo Shack Pro. It allows you to place your photos into albums in any order you want, and create libraries for your albums, all without duplicating a single photo or wasting any space. It runs right out of your iPad's existing "Photos" library, so you don't strand photos is some app's private library. All of your photos remain available to all of your apps, all of the time. It simply picks-up where your iPad's "Photos" app leaves off.

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Organizing photos on ipad

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