In Settings>Privacy and Security>Photos, Safari shows Private Access as the only option and states "This app can show your photo library but can only access the items you select." I cannot find anywhere to select/deselect photos. All other apps show None, Limited Access or Full Access. I am missing something.
Can anyone shed some light?
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iPhone 14 Pro, iOS 17
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.
This answer does not address the question. On my iPhone 17.3.1 in Settings when I press Privacy and Security then Photos the apps are listed, but Word and Acrobat have “Private Access” which I did not set. There is no choice to change access to “None” anywhere. (first photo).
Other photos are what I see when I press the app names in Setting - for example when I press Acrobat in Settings I see the 2nd photo, which shows Private Access. I press Acrobat-Private Access it shows Private Access and Options. Next photo is when I press Options-No Location. You see what it shows: 4 more items but no choice to disallow Acrobat from using my photos. The same sequence of screens comes up when I press on Word in Settings.
One more thing, in Settings when I press on duckduckgo which is the browser I usually use, and select Photos there is a “None” choice to stop duckduckgo from using my photos.
There is no way to disallow Acrobat and Word from accessing Photos. Why don’t these apps have the “None” choice that duckduckgo has in Settings-(app name)-Photos?
After following through the thread since it was opened, there is no communication from Apple on this, thus clearly suggesting there is a problem and apple knows about it. what is not clear why apple is silent on it.. had it been simple configuration issue, apple would have responded but surely there is something more serious than that... apple silence is deafening.
vb_ wrote: "...what is not clear why apple is silent on it..."
vb ~ Apple is silent on it because it isn't here monitoring every thread. This is a user-to-user community. Consider using this form:
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what it means is if you edit it before so go on photos click on the photo you want click on edit and edit it like give it a few changes then apply and go back to the site make sure the select photo is still open then a photo will appear and shows the one you edit
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Yeah this is horrible. None of my apps will access any photos and “Private Access” is the only option on settings and is grayed out and unselectable. At first I could select the photo from the Photos app and then choose where to share it. But now a warning always pops up and send me to settings where I can’t change anything that makes a difference.
Has Apple even responded here? I
can’t find any responses from them. I called Apple a couple of weeks ago re this. Their solution was to reset my phone…..uh no thanks, I knew it wasn’t just my phone. That’s always their standard answer.
Sooooo this just **** me offf . I wake up to me not being able to use my snap i do streaks wtf . Then go on instagram cant even post nun of my videos / photos!! Apple needa do better ! This drove me to the MAX! i will be callin the company . This is why yall are losing customers cause of the dumb **** yall do .
April 2024 and this is still an issue. I use an app called Phonto. The entire purpose is to put text over photos. Im an author, and I use this app to create/draft ideas for my book covers. It can not access ANY OF MY PHOTOS because “Private Access” is my only option.
Apple, fix this.
hello, Since yesterday. My phone decided to put all apps including discord to private access. I cannot figure out why this happened, if anyone has a solution please tell me. This unchangeable setting is really annoying and it also happened randomly.
same here like what is the purpose of this setting. No browser should have access to your photos, especially when we wouldn’t authorize permission in the first place, not like how yall gone remove the right /option for the people to allow or deny access to photos. this is ludicrous!!🤬🤬
Hi applepie,
I reposted my question to Lisa_12. Thanks for the screen shot.
Is it possible its because you’ve used safari to access your photos in iCloud.com?
You are right, the RC ios17 also fixed this issue but it came back again with ios 17.1 GA.
Did you ever get a fix? My phone gave me the update today and it’s happened to me
It didn't for me. Rather the private access has expanded to more than one app.
Photo settings on iPhone's Safari stuck on “Private Access” with iOS 17
