How do you REALLY move the order of photos within an Apple photo album

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Level 1

4 points

How do you REALLY move the order of photos within an Apple photo album

I see some dated instructions to go into the album, hit select, then tap and hold image until it begins to float. Everything works up until this point. The next instruction is to drag the image to another position and let go and all the other images will shuffle to make room for the picture. Tap done and the new order of images will be saved. THIS DOES NOT WORK. I can get the photo to move but the other images do not adjust and it will not save to a new position. It just pops right back to the original position. I HAVE BEEN TRYING THIS FOR YEARS NOW. It’s a shame Apple has not rectified something so simple and what should be a quick fix in one of their gazillion updates. Especially considering the camera is one of the things that gets upgraded in all their new releases. So disappointing. I will be using another source to create photo albums from now on.

iPhone 13 Pro Max, iOS 15

Posted on Nov 25, 2022 11:27 PM

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Answer 1

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léonie

Level 10

194,561 points

Nov 27, 2022 12:27 AM in response to tes7171

And are you still using iOS 15, as shown below your question? I have seen the same behaviour on one of the iOS 15 versions - the dragged and dropped image just bounced back. And another problem is, that we could only drag very short distances, as the album has not been scrolled automatically, when we reached the border of the display. Perhaps an update will fix this, if you are not already running the most recent version of iOS 15. Or go right for the next major system version iOS 16.

On iOS 16 the manual sorting of photos has been slightly changed. We need to touch and hold the photo we want to drag just very lightly. If we use the slightest pressure the image will become enlarged and the Info will be shown, occluding the other images. But we can still drag and drop the the enlarged photo while it is enlarged. It is just hard to see where we will drop it. We still cannot drag and drop over a large distance, even on iOS 16. Use the manual sorting only for albums with a few images. Usually the built-in automatic sort command in Photos iOS 16 in the menu (•••) in the upper right corner of the album will suffice to get the images sorted by the capture date.

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Answer 2

Nov 26, 2022 9:11 AM in response to tes7171

It's not clear what you mean, since manual sorting as been working the same way for many years:

The image above was made while moving a thumbnail from one position to another while the other pictures move over to make room, just as you described. This was done in the thumbnail view of the album, 02 03 Calgary.

There must be a misunderstanding of some sort. You quote, "go into the album," and the point is that manual sorting works only in an album, not in Library or Recents or Imports, etc. What you describe happening with you is exactly what happens if you try to move an icon in the Library view, for instance.

In an album (but not in the others) you can automatically sort by title or date:

And you can manually sort by dragging the icon to a new position.

How is what you are doing different? If we have details we may be able to help.

By the way, statements like "It’s a shame Apple has not rectified something" does no good here-- none of us works for Apple, and we can't feel shame for these things-- we're just users like yourself.

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