Clearly this has been an aggravation for many iOS users for years. People want to MOVE photos to an album not add them. How does this not take up space? Take a queue from Android, they allow users to actually move photos to created albums, not copy them to albums.
This would be a fantastic update to Apple!
iPhone 12 Pro Max, iOS 17
Albums don't contain pictures, they are lists of pictures you like to see together. "Move" makes little sense, since, as stedman1 says, a picture can be in several albums without taking up any extra storage space. What you copy is just a name on a list.
The picture of "Aunt Ethel at the Grand Canyon" can be in the "Aunt Ethel" album with other pictures of Aunt Ethel, and it can also be in the "Grand Canyon" album with pictures of other people at the Grand Canyon. This is very powerful in organizing pictures.
Albums don't contain pictures, they are lists of pictures you like to see together. "Move" makes little sense, since, as stedman1 says, a picture can be in several albums without taking up any extra storage space. What you copy is just a name on a list.
The picture of "Aunt Ethel at the Grand Canyon" can be in the "Aunt Ethel" album with other pictures of Aunt Ethel, and it can also be in the "Grand Canyon" album with pictures of other people at the Grand Canyon. This is very powerful in organizing pictures.
“ How does this not take up space?”
Quite simple actually, as the photo files are not copied to an album. There is only one copy of the photo, no matter how many albums that photo appears.
When you add a photo to an album on an iPhone it just creates a pointer in that album back to the original photo. So the most it takes up on the storage is maybe a kilobyte or two. It's the same on a Mac in the Photos library and in iTunes (now Music) with playlists and audio tracks, i.e. smoke and mirrors 🤭.
Why have a photo show up in several other albums
The only limit there is your imagination and organisational requirements. But how about a photo in an Album called John's Wedding. But also in an album of your Family Favourites. Why should it only be in one? Why should I have to search through 200 photos from John's Wedding to find the favourite, when I can just bundle all those favourites together?
and go on a hunt of "now where did I put that photo, let me look in 3 different albums".
Perhaps you might consider using the search tools. They're quite useful.
TaC26 wrote: Why have a photo show up in several other albums and go on a hunt of "now where did I put that photo, let me look in 3 different albums".
Of course, if it were in all three albums, you'd only have to look in the first one to find it. But your original question was “ How does this not take up space?” and I hope that stedman1 and I have helped with that.
If you are just unhappy with the way Photos works, it does you no good to tell us-- we're just users like yourself. You can leave feedback for Apple here:
Your statement of "This is very powerful in organizing pictures" is your perception. Move makes perfect sense to thousands of ios users. If there were the option to move a photo, one could go to the album they've moved the photo to. Why have a photo show up in several other albums and go on a hunt of "now where did I put that photo, let me look in 3 different albums".
MOVE photos
