Photo settings on iPhone's Safari stuck on “Private Access” with iOS 17

Hi Apple. iOS is tagging apps randomly with this Private Access setting which makes it impossible to upload pictures. Why this behaviour can not be controlled. Please issue a fix!

Has anyones been fixed already? And if yes HOW?? ts is so irritating because why in every app? Cant access my gallery nowhere

I have this problem now too. Safari, YT Music, Pages, and DDG (of all apps that one is extra weird to have that). I cannot change the photos settings that are stuck on “Private Access”. IOS 17.0.3 on the 15 Pro, did you ever figure it out?

IS ANYONE FROM APPLE LISTENING?

I am having the same issue. Any of my Apps that are marked Private Access I cannot change. Maybe because it is not technically an option: Full Access, Limited Access, None. Regardless we need a way to fix this!

I started seeing this problem when apple introduced custom photos/posters in ios17. That time it was contact app which got private access to my photo. Now that is gone but it resurfaced for safari. Even resetting the location and privacy settings does not help.

i have my icloud access disabled overall and so icloud photo sharing but still i have it enabled and i have no means to disable it.

This is very critical security issue as I dont know what caused it enabled in first place and why Safari( which is the window to the internet) has unchallenged private access to it?

It is very frustrated and concerning.

Is anyone from Apple listening?

Still an issue!! Anything on “private access” is stuck there. There are no other options to switch it back. Software updates needed!

I has a very similar problem. When I check Settings>Privacy>Photos, I had a single app that only had two options available to select -- None, Add Only.

I was able to solve this problem, by going to Settings>General>iPhone Storage and selecting the app in question, and choose the offload option which deletes the app, but retains its data. After reinstalling the app, all options became visible.

Note, this only became a problem for me with iOS 17.01

I’m having this problem as well. The issue for me is that I am also unable to SAVE any photos to my camera roll. I have a paid membership for Canva and need to download my designs to my phone for work. I am no longer able to do this as it’s set to “private access” with no other option and it restricts me. How does this issue get escalated to Apple to be fixed? This is a HUGE problem!!!

iPad Pro 17.1.1

I’m having the same issue since the last update. However, I figured out a workaround until Apple fixes this bug.

In order to post a photo or video to an App or a social media url webpage that has Private Access or an App that has the correct permissions but still doesn’t work:

1) In Photos, select the photo or video you want to post.

2) Hold down on the photo or video until a menu pops out.

3) Select Share then Save To Files

4) Select iCloud Drive

5) Save it to the Downloads folder

6) Posting on an APP or url website, Select Photo/Video icon

7) Select Choose Files

8) Select iCloud Drive

9) Open Downloads folder and select your photo or video

This is really a messed up way to share photos and videos, but it works. If anyone has a better solution, please share.

I have the same problem, although I have selected individual photos I still cannot attach these to Outlook email. This has happened since the last update. It’s very annoying as I can’t change the settings from Private access to anything else at, there is no other option. I do wish they would leave things alone.

The setting “Private Access” is perfectly fine. If you have trouble selecting photos from your Photo Library to upload to websites there might be another problem (like e.g. not seeing videos in the selector because the site would only take stills).

As the text for this “unchangeable setting” explains, it means that Safari and therefore websites by default have No Access to your Photo Library, it remains “Private”.

When you want to upload photos to a website from your Photo Library, you get a photo picker like the one for „Limited Access“ to select which photos the upload process will see at all. The only difference to „Limited Access“ is, that it does not remember your last choices but defaults to no photos selected for access every time. Hence the different naming „Private Access“.

This is by the way not new and exactly the way photo selection for certain apps like Browsers worked before (I assume since iOS 14). With iOS 17 only the presentation and wording of this function changed. Up to iOS 16 “Limited Access” showed as “Selected Photos” and Apps like Safari would be listed separately under the heading “Apps with One-Off Photo Selection”, see screenshot.

Thanks for the work around, but I should be able to adjust what level of access I want to give to each app, and currently I am not able to do that.

Believe it or not, some of us WANT to save photos from Safari to our photos app and now that functionality is destroyed. Good job Apple. Break something that some of us find ESSENTIAL for use on our phones. In case the sarcasm was lost on you eggheads who clearly didn’t think this through, this is unacceptable behavior and needs to be fixed. If you make a change this drastic then also make sure the user can turn it off/roll it back/undo it. Don’t tell me that Safari is not allowed to share a photo to have it saved to the camera roll, that’s unacceptable and needs to be fixed and escalated. Wake up Apple!!!