how to custom sort photos in shared photo album?

Shared albums are not albums - the name is misleading. When Apple introduced them in as a new iCloud feature in 2012 on OS X 10.8 Mountain Lion, they were called Shared Photo Streams, a cache in iCloud, where we could drop selected photos to share with others and have a chat with photos. They have not been meant to be albums at all. The most recent photo we shared appeared at the end of the shared photo stream, the subscribers would receive an alert about the new photo, could add a comment, add a like and reply with a new photo their own. It has not been been possible to sort the shared photo streams at all, and it would not have made sense to do so, because then the photos and comments would be out of context. It does not make sense to sort a the comments in a discussion. We did not need Shared albums that can be sorted at that time, when the Shared Streams have been introduced, but we needed a chat with photos. For shared albums in iCloud we had iWeb, but there were not yet iMessages to share photos.

When Apple replaced iPhoto by Photos, the Shared Photos Streams have been renamed to iCloud Photo Sharing and later to Shared Albums. Because they are now named albums, people expect them to be like the other albums in Photos, but they are still streams. When we sort a shared album, only we will see it sorted this way. The subscribers will not see our sort order. They have to sort it on their devices.

It is not possible on the system version you have given - macOS 10.13. On the earlier system versions you have to share the photos one by one, and add them in exactly the order you want them to appear.

On macOS13 Ventura you can sort shared albums, either by the date taken or the date added.

• Open the shared album in Photos for Mac.
• Go to the menu item "View > Sort" and select "Keep sorted by ...."

BBfrazzledagain wrote:

This is really irritating........."custom sort" is available everywhere except with a shared album...completely mindblowingly bonkers

JUST FIX IT

We can't. We're end users like yourself. If you want to show your displeasure directly to apple use Feedback - Photos - Apple

Please read the following user tip and restate your question/problem in detail: 

     Writing an Effective Apple Support Communities Question - Apple Community

Are you the owner of the shared album?

Do you want to sort it on iCloud or in your library?

If on iCloud the only sort is the order they were added.

On your computer only the three options offered by Photos is available. Tell Apple what missing features you'd like restored or new features added in Photos via Feedback - Photos - Apple

Just to update this thread - as of macOS Sonoma v14.2.1 (23C71) there is no way to randomly rearrange shared album photos. Really disappointing.

This is really irritating........."custom sort" is available everywhere except with a shared album...completely mindblowingly bonkers

JUST FIX IT

I want to custom sort photos in a shared album - tap and drag just as I do in a non-shared album. Please don’t tell me to pick one of the three prescribed options found under “…” - that is NOT custom sorting.

Thanks for your response. This is a huge shortcoming!

léonie wrote:

It is not possible on the system version you have given - macOS 10.13. • On the earlier system versions you have to share the photos one by one, and add them in exactly the order you want them to appear.

On macOS13 Ventura you can sort shared albums, either by the date taken or the date added.

Open the shared album in Photos for Mac.

• Go to the menu item "View > Sort" and select "Keep sorted by ...."

In MacOS 14 Sonoma You can also sort by: keep Sorted By Date Added

This means you can custom sort if you add your photos in reverse order! But no chance to add a photo except as the newest photo. AARRGGH!

The fact that there is no way to custom sort in icloud shared albums make them useless for me.

What a pity.

Whatever happened to "it just works"?