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

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.

An option I use is a Smart album with the following criteria:

Then you can sort by any of these options:

The Smart Album is updated automatically with any imports.

I do that, too, OT, but unfortunately, mattytwxlls is using an iPhone 14 Pro and, as you know, iPhone Photos doesn't support Smart Albums.

Since Photos behaves differently on iPhone and Mac, I wish they these discussions would be separated (again.)

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.

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.

You're welcome, Matt 😊

Dang, I did it again. Didn't read the bio and just assumed it was for a Mac. I hate this new ASC organization.

Thanks for pointing that out for me.

I was mostly pointing it out for mattytwxlls, in case it would confuse things. I've done this too many times, myself.