Apple TV photo screensaver not showing all photos in tvOS 16

So this cured mine. I did this using my Mac laptop; I'm not sure how you do it if you don't have a Mac computer.

• Switch on home sharing from your Mac (from preferences: sharing)
• From photos on your Mac, add the photos you want to a new shared album (using the square with an arrow icon at the top)
• From your TV, when choosing the screensaver, choose 'home sharing' instead of 'my photos'
• Choose the shared album you want.

This now shows all my photos in random order, not just the first 125.

I'm sorry I don't know how to do this if you don't have a desktop/laptop Mac.

Same issue on both of our Apple TVs after updating to 16. Very frustrating. I've tried everything like others and no luck. Funny thing is, all my Windows PCs and Google Home devices all display all photos from our iCloud library in slideshows with no issue. Only the Apple devices don't work with their own cloud service. Please fix this Apple!

Same here, feature worked flawlessly for over a year. Then after upgrading to TVOS16 I only see pictures of the eighties!

So the screensaver really limits itself to a small number of oldest “favorites”.

Please fix this bug… as said, this feature was an awesome “set and forget” way to see all your favorite shots / memories pass by.

It's plainly a bug introduced with TV OS 16.

Apple just needs to fix it:

tvOS 16 breaks My Photos/Homesharing phot… - Apple Community

Apple TV 16 screensaver Shared Album won - Apple Community

photos cache apple tv - Apple Community

How to Get Apple TV Slideshow Photos in S… - Apple Community

I have the (almost) same issue. I have an album with selected frame photos - about 480 photos. They are replaced with a random set of another 480 from my library regularly.

Since I updated to 16, the “random” screensaver circles not all 480, but only the 37 - and exactly 37(!) - most recent (not the oldest, but most recent) photos.

I also tried deleting some of the most recent photos, to see what will happen.

Well, just the 37 most recent photos from the remaining show. Once I returned the deleted back, they started appearing again.

Same Photos album, in the Photos app if set to Slideshow - random, does it quite well. So the problem is definitely not in the photos, nor in the slideshow, just in the screensaver functionality.

Bizarrely my AppleTV gen 2 shows all photos, but my HD (new) one running software version 16 now has the same issue. Like others in this thread, this was one of the highlights of this device. Please fix the bug!

I am having this exact same problem. Prior to tvOS 16, using the iCloud Photo Library was the "fix" to this exact same limited caching problem using a folder selected "home sharing".

So, is this a bug, or now just a feature? Very frustrating, especially as a photographer who likes to display a rather large portfolio.

So, this did not work for me.... In fact, this was my original method I used in the past that consistently only cached 100 to 200 images (and reshowed them over and over). I thought it curious that tvOS 16 fixed the original bug, and broke the original fix.

Anyway, I have a shared album that my partner and I both put photos in that we take. There is probably 1000 images there. It started up great, but within a short window of time started repeating images and not showing anything new.

Looks like Apple want bug compatibility for all methods :(

BTW, doing a slide show as some have suggested is just not optimal. I want to set and forget so that whenever we are just listening to music, or just have the ATV on doing nothing, we automatically go to randomized photo display. (Like before it go rebroken.)

Made sure home sharing is enabled (it was). Same problem. Very frustrating. This has been a problem for a LONG time. I own 4 Apple TVs. Same issue of only displaying a few of the many pictures in any given shared album. For me, this could be the killer feature that keeps me tied in to Apple's ecosystem. Instead, I find that it is increasingly irritating me.

• Switch on home sharing from your Mac (from preferences: sharing)
• From photos on your Mac, add the photos you want to a new shared album (using the square with an arrow icon at the top)
• From your TV, when choosing the screensaver, choose 'home sharing' instead of 'my photos'
• Choose the shared album you want.

This now shows all my photos in random order, not just the first 125.

I'm sorry I don't know how to do this if you don't have a desktop/laptop Mac.

Hello edin207,

Welcome to Apple Support Communities. 

We are happy to point you in the right direction. Please reach out to Apple Support here for further assistance: Apple Support

Let us know if you have further questions.

Take care.

Home Sharing did not work for me with my Mac Mini but it is working near perfectly from a Windows machine. Go figure. For the person who asked how to do it in Windows, download iTunes, log in with your Apple ID, got to the File menu, select Home Sharing and turn it on. Follow the prompts to select your iCloud photos or whatever library you want to use. You do have to keep iTunes open all the time, and I believe prevent your machine from hibernating, but it does work pretty well.

Using Home Sharing from my Mac gives me about 14 pictures that keep showing over and over. Not sure why that is and I've tried everything I know to fix it with no luck. All of our library is on the Mac, downloaded in full resolution so there's no reason for them not to show on the TV.

I have to say every Apple device that updated to a version 16 has been buggy and frustrating. Their software has been getting worse and worse with each release and I long for the days when it all just worked. I guess that notion died with Jobs. Can't wait to see what happens when our iPads update to iPadOS 16!

I the Photos app on my iMac, I made a new shared album. Copied the photos from the album that “was” working into the new album. On the Apple TV, I selected the new album and started the screen saver. NOPE. That did not fix it. Still showing only a select few (really old) images.

Hey Apple… get this fixed!

I have been using AppleTV's since the first generation when it looked like a Mac mini. The photo screensaver has always been a key reason we buy these devices. We currently have 4 4k AppleTV's and 2 of them are ONLY for displaying our pictures on the wall. Now they sit blank for half the day or show the same few oldest photos out of our 2,000+ photo Favourites library. There has already been an update to v16 and this essential feature is still broken. The screen saver goes blank (when set never to sleep) and it repeats the same subset of photos over and over again when it does display anything.

The 'Home Sharing' workaround suggested in the other comments would work for some but it is stepping back to the way we did things years ago before iCloud. This really needs to be fixed soon!

Same issue!!!! And same reason for frustration!! It is a focal point of our home when we have guests or even don’t! Now it just shows the same 80-100 pics when we have a full folder of 5000.. really was hoping with the update it would be perfect but it’s annoying! Please advise