Sort 'recents' by date order, change key photo(s)

I'm doing a big tidy-up and organisation of all of my photos - I am making full use of my 2TB iCloud Storage! I'm importing photos into my iCloud from pre-2021 (this is 10,000+ photos) - and I'm experiencing some frustrating things that I need to know how to solve.


  1. How do I filter the 'recents' album, by date? e.g. the photos I am importing are from 2019, my iPhone and the Photos app recognises this, but puts them right at the bottom of my 'recents' folder - I want my entire recents folder to be in date order (as it was before I imported all of the photos)
  2. How do I change the Album Cover of any of my Photo Albums? On iPhone there seems to be no way at all, I feel I have looked through every single option.


Thanks!

Matt

iPhone 14 Pro, iOS 17

Posted on Apr 26, 2024 3:26 AM

Reply
Question marked as Top-ranking reply

Posted on Apr 26, 2024 3:55 AM

Recents is sorted by the date the photos have been added to your Photos Library.

The "Date added" is not stable across system versions and can change, whenever Photos has to rebuild the library, for example, when you move the Photos Library to a new device or the install a system upgrade with a new version of Photos, also, when the Photos Library gets damaged for some reason and needs to be repaired..

There is nothing you can do to revert to the previous sorting of the Recents album.


When you want to see your photos sorted by the date they had been taken (not the "Date added" like in Recents), look at the "All Photos" tab of the Library. "All Photos" is sorted by the date the photos have been taken, and this date is stable across system versions. You can also quickly access different Years, Months, days, by using the other tabs.


Sorry, I overlooked your second part of the question.

Photos iOS is using the first photo in each album as the cover photo. To change the cover photo, drag the photo you want to use as the cover to the first position in the album. If you need the photo at another place in the album, duplicate the photo. The duplicate does not need extra storage.


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9 replies
Question marked as Top-ranking reply

Apr 26, 2024 3:55 AM in response to mattytwxlls

Recents is sorted by the date the photos have been added to your Photos Library.

The "Date added" is not stable across system versions and can change, whenever Photos has to rebuild the library, for example, when you move the Photos Library to a new device or the install a system upgrade with a new version of Photos, also, when the Photos Library gets damaged for some reason and needs to be repaired..

There is nothing you can do to revert to the previous sorting of the Recents album.


When you want to see your photos sorted by the date they had been taken (not the "Date added" like in Recents), look at the "All Photos" tab of the Library. "All Photos" is sorted by the date the photos have been taken, and this date is stable across system versions. You can also quickly access different Years, Months, days, by using the other tabs.


Sorry, I overlooked your second part of the question.

Photos iOS is using the first photo in each album as the cover photo. To change the cover photo, drag the photo you want to use as the cover to the first position in the album. If you need the photo at another place in the album, duplicate the photo. The duplicate does not need extra storage.


Apr 26, 2024 10:16 AM in response to Richard.Taylor

At least, it should be compulsory to enter the device when submitting the question - there should be the device shown in big, bold letters before starting to compose the question, so the OPs get a chance to correct the device, if the default is wrong. And then we could have a title "Photos for Mac" or "Photos for iPhone" or "Photos for iPad".This should go for all apps, not just Photos.




Apr 26, 2024 11:25 AM in response to léonie

léonie wrote:

At least, it should be compulsory to enter the device when submitting the question - there should be the device shown in big, bold letters before starting to compose the question, so the OPs get a chance to correct the device, if the default is wrong. And then we could have a title "Photos for Mac" or "Photos for iPhone" or "Photos for iPad".This should go for all apps, not just Photos.


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Sort 'recents' by date order, change key photo(s)

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