iPhone Wallpaper Shuffle limits available people selection

This issue has been so frustrating but I've finally found a fix (at least that worked for my phone)! Going in to my photo albums, I clicked the "People & Places" album and selected all the people I did not want included in the photo shuffle. Then I removed them from the "People" album. When I went back to wallpapers to set up the new Photo Shuffle, the only people shown were those that were left in my "People" album. Hopefully there's a legit fix soon but this works for now!

Just wanted to add a little to the steps I mentioned above as I have found some people still experienced issued where the problem came back moments after.

What seems to be the complete fix/solution is:

1. Removing ALL people from the "People Album" in the photo app
2. Let the photos app analyse, rebuild and find the people. That seems to be what actually flushes the problem.
3. Add back the removed people to the "People Album".
4. The Photo shuffle should see everyone now.

This worked! I tried removing just the people who were not showing up on the Photo Shuffle, but that didn’t work. After removing everyone from the People & Places album and letting the system reset, all the people showed up in the Photo Shuffle. Thanks!

Making sure you do this "Removing ALL people from the "People Album" in the photo app" fixed this issue for me. So painful!!!

I am having this same issue. I have been meticulous in setting up people in my photos app. When I updated to iOS 17, most of the people were listed as options for the lock screen photo shuffle. I then spent some time in Photos, connecting the people with contacts. Now, I don't even have the option to select people on my lock screen.

I did just have an insight though- How many people having this issue are using the Shared Library feature? When I view "People & Pets" in Photos on my Mac, everyone is there if I have "Both Libraries" selected, but not "Personal Library" or "Shared Library". Photos even gives a note to say that "Both Libraries" must be selected.

I'm guessing the Photo Shuffle feature is not aware of Shared Libraries and that, originally, some of my people were still linked to my personal library. When I updated and connected People with contacts, they became part of "Both Libraries" and no longer visible to Photo Shuffle.

Please check your People Album to see the faces that are tagged and named. The pic below is self-explanatory

I’ve had this problem ever since the option had been available. Bad show by apple that it still exists today after a couple of years. I’ve tried what Abstulo suggested and that has allowed the three people I wanted to show while setting up photo shuffle on my lock screen. Soon as I add the one and only person out of four back into my people album. The other three vanish from the lock screen photo shuffle.

So I’ve gone back to my people album and removed them all. After doing so it showed one more person in the people album. But with no photo or name. So I’ve selected it and removed.

I then had a prompt saying if I removed this blank person. It would reset all the people. “Wish I’d taken a screen shot”

I’ll update once I get to have the phone on charge and locked so the phone can update the people album. Hopefully this will force it back into working.

This is not helpful. I can't choose one person on the lock screen even though I can see them in the pictures->people. Apart from that the lock screen says I have selected 1 person even when I unselect everyone. This is a joke.

same problem. I have my kids as favourites. I go to adjust the locked screen shuffle and it says 3 people selected but I don’t see the 3rd person and I can’t un-select the hidden person. It’s also not my 3rd kid so I have no way of adding them or removing them.

I’m having the exact same issue. Both my children are tagged and identified in my photo album, I can easily create albums with their photo ID but of the five thumbnail choices of people from the “Photo Shuffle” option for Lock Screen, I have two thumbnails of one kid, one for my husband and two random friends of my kids. I can’t select myself either. Why doesn’t this align with the “people” feature in Photo app? Also same thing when I deselect everyone. Still shows up as one person selected (but photo is just a black screen). This app needs to be fixed. No solution has been provided.

I’m having the same issue. This was working properly until sometime around July-August of this year. My daughter is identified in photos but not available to select in the Lock Screen shuffle section. She’s the only person I really want to show up on the Lock Screen shuffle so hopefully Apple comes out with a fix soon.

It's almost October coupled with 1 or 2 system updates and this is still a problem! I have hundreds of photos of both my daughters, yet neither are available for selection in photo shuffle. There are people available for selection who are just in 3 or 4 group photos (no individual photos)... so annoying! Please fix this Apple!!

This kinda worked for me. After deleting people on my albums and having the phone reset and do its thing, i was able to see all my people on the shuffle list, but just for 1 time. After setting it, I forgot to pick 1 person so I went back to wallpapers to change it, and I am back to the same problem I had before - only 6 of my 30+ people are showing.

I have the same problem, has anyone found a solution to this?

Nope. I have 13 people ID'd in Photos. Only three show up in Shuffle. And they're not the three I want.