I’ve looked through Apple Support and found a few articles that say you can choose the order of your pictures in the Photos app by opening an album and clicking on the “…” menu at the top right and choosing “Sort”, but there is no such option in that menu. What happened to that option? Why would they get rid of that feature? It’s so annoying that I can’t arrange my pictures however I want to in that app.
iPhone 15 Pro, iOS 17
What kind of album are you trying to sort?
You can sort the photos in any album you create yourself, but not the albums created automatically by Photos for us. It is not possible to sort Recents, Imports, All Photos etc., or any of the albums in the Media section. The predefined albums re coming with fixed sort order, specific for each album. But for the albums we create ourselves, the "Sort" option is still in the menu with the three dots.
What kind of album are you trying to sort?
You can sort the photos in any album you create yourself, but not the albums created automatically by Photos for us. It is not possible to sort Recents, Imports, All Photos etc., or any of the albums in the Media section. The predefined albums re coming with fixed sort order, specific for each album. But for the albums we create ourselves, the "Sort" option is still in the menu with the three dots.
You may want to send the hint as a feature request, using the feedback form:
It would indeed very very useful, particularly for Mac users who are syncing the devices with iCloud Photos. Most of my albums on the Mac are smart albums, and on my iPhone and iPad I am just seeing empty folders, where the smart albums should be.
Here is a feedback form: Photos for iOS - Feedback - Apple
Apple will read all feedback, even if we do not get a reply.
Okay. So just delete every album that the app creates automatically and create my own albums. Cool. I love doing extra work that I shouldn’t have to do. 🙄 Thanks Apple, and thanks for explaining that in the articles on this subject - NOT.
Anywho - unless I’m missing something, there’s no way to hide an entire album that I create so that I can sort my hidden pictures. Any work-around there? Other than un-hiding everything and re-hiding them all one-by-one in a specific order, that is.
For a company that claims to be “user-friendly” and “intuitive”, they sure seem to have really dropped the ball with this fundamental app.
I'll have to disappoint you further, sorry.
You cannot even delete the albums created by Photos for you. These albums will stay. But your own albums will not take up any additional storage. Albums do not contain copies of the photos, just references. Each photo is only stored once, independent of the number of albums it is in.
You can create albums of your hidden photos, where you can view them, but only in Photos on a Mac, not on an iPhone. On a Mac you can organize the hidden photos with smart albums. Hidden Photos are visible in smart albums, if the smart album has a rule "Photo is hidden". But that is not possible in Photos iOS, as the the mobile devices do not yet support smart albums.
Thanks for the further information, although disappointing. I was able to delete a bunch of albums that were automatically created by various apps on my iPhone, but “Recents” and “Favorites” can not be deleted, as you stated.
Perhaps Apple will add support for smart albums within iOS in the near future. That would be lovely, APPLE. <hint hint>
What happened to sorting pictures in Photos app?
