Sort Photos Out of Camera Roll

I recently got an iPad I use for digital art. I haven’t owned an iPad before this and am looking for a way to permanently sort photos out of my camera roll into other albums. I found some threads asking similar questions and it seemed the answer was this couldn’t be done. However, the threads were from 2016, etc. In 2021, is there still no way to actually sort photos on an Apple device? The fact that ‘sorted’ photos remain in the camera roll makes it impossible for me to determine which photos have already been added to another album without opening the album and looking for them. This essentially makes the album system useless for me and I’m left with thousands of photos, iterations of art pieces, reference photos, etc. in a jumbled mess in my camera roll. I would like to be able to permanently sort and divide these photos into albums by use and subject and have them be removed from my camera roll so I can determine which have already been sorted. Can this be done?


Thank you for any help you may provide.

iPad Air, iPadOS 14

Posted on Jun 3, 2021 2:50 PM

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Jun 4, 2021 8:28 AM in response to ItsLeaNicole

fact that ‘sorted’ photos remain in the camera roll makes it impossible for me to determine which photos have already been added to another album without opening the album and looking for them. This essentially makes the album system useless for me and I’m left with thousands of photos, iterations of art pieces, reference photos, etc. in a jumbled mess in my camera roll. I would like to be able to permanently sort and divide these photos into albums by use and subject and have them be removed from my camera roll so I can determine which have already been sorted. Can this be done?

This is how Photos is designed. When you designate a photo to an album, the photo does not "move", as a virtual copy is made and placed in the album. This way photos can be in multiple albums without being duplicated in your photo library.


Most photo organizing apps have gone this way, using tags to sort and not albums/folders.


Feedback for Apple goes here >>> http://www.apple.com/feedback/.


If you have a Mac and use a synced photo library there, you can create a smart album that captures all photos not in an album.

Jun 4, 2021 9:28 AM in response to ItsLeaNicole

There are two possible work-arounds.

  • you could use the favorite heart to mark the photos you have added to an album, as the non-favorites are probably not worth to be organized in albums. then you can see by heart badge if a photo is in an album. or write the name of the album into the caption.
  • Or create an album “my all photos” . add the photos to albums starting from your own album. From your own album you can remove photos after you added them to other albums.

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Sort Photos Out of Camera Roll

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