Albums missing or moving in iOS 18 photos app

Reverse this mess to iOS17. I’ve lost so many pictures and albums. Unbelievable. iOS18 is the worse update by Apple. Fix it!!!

The Utiful Photo Organizer app is a quite good alternative because it a) is very easy to use, b) allows you to move photos out of the camera roll to separate folders, so that the photos disappear from the camera roll (yay!), and c) lets you sync your photo folders between your iOS devices.

I agree that Apple should address this nightmare. Apple had marketed there phone as such fabulous cameras so why are they messing with what so many people use their phones for. I was set on ordering an iPhone 16 pro but slammed on the brakes after I read about this. I have over 9000 photos that are stored on my phone for various reasons as well as documenting dates and issues. If I update to ISO18, from what I have read, it will be virtually impossible to find them. I wish Apple would address this issue and give a resolution and also can't understand why they don't put a warning about losing all of your albums and work of many years.

Maybe I misunderstand the issue and if so please put my mind to rest somebody. Otherwise I will stay with IOS 17.7 until forced to update to 18.0.

I sync with iCloud and mine didn't disapear again. After you sync with your PC or Mac but before you sync with iCloud again you have to tell it to give priority to the phone over iCloud, it's a checkbox somewhere. Sorry I don't remember where but it's there... Another way is to delete your photos from iCloud (make sure they was backed up to the phone and synced with computer or mac first) and then when you do the setup and sync with iCloud it will put all your stuff on iCloud back in the order you had them on your PC or Mac same as the phone did.

Yeah, mine disappeared and reverted back to the screwed up version. I have no idea where that"prioritize phone feature is" Didn't see it on my MacBook Pro or on my iPhone while I was doing your fix.

You mean when you sync with iCloud?

They should go back after you have sync'ed the phone with iCloud again after you've done the iTunes part. Mine did and are even in the same albums as on the phone itself now. If you log into iCloud I think there is (at least used to be, haven't looked lately) also a place in albums where you can click to choose to update iTunes with data from the phone during next sync. But I admit it's been awhile since I used that so don't know if they changed that option.

I am trying your solution for the 2nd time. I guess part of the confusion is that you keep saying iTunes, and iTunes doesn't exist standalone anymore, it's the Music app now that includes iTunes within. Step 11 is confusing because on the left it shows your iPhone and on the top right you can choose Photos. I did not see a prioritize phone option. Let's see if the 2nd time is the charm. Once all of my 18,000+ photos get re-installed into my phone I will turn on sync to iCloud again and see if they disappear like they did the second time. I'll keep you updated.

Odd, are you on a Mac? Because iTunes is still a stand alone program for the PC. It's both in the Microsoft store (which I don't like) or you can search Apples website for "iTunes Download" and find the classic stand alone installer for 64 bit Windows which is what I used the last time I installed it after installing a new m.2 drive just a few weeks ago.

That's really odd, it worked so easy for me. The photos from my phone take priority over whats on iCloud.

What about this, can you (and sorry, haven't used the desktop thing for iCloud in awhile) use the desktop iCloud program and sync to iCloud direct from your PC?

OK, A quick web-search turned up this (and that's the checkbox/switch) I was reffering to earlier but this details the steps....

To force photos TO iCloud FROM your iPhone, You'll need to:

Open the “Settings” app on your phone.

Tap your name at the top of the settings page, and select iCloud.

On the iCloud page, select “Photos” at the top of the list.

Toggle the “iCloud Photo Library” switch to the on position.

Once this is active, your photos will begin to upload to iCloud.

You must also make sure your iPhone is connected to Wi-Fi and to Power.

On mine it was turned on so I turned it OFF before I sync'ed with iTunes after making the changes to the photo settings that I mentioned which got my photos on the phone, and then I turned this back on after everything was on the phone and it did not erase them from my phone, it just started sending them to the iCloud in the new folders (which was actually my old folders but now was on my phone).

I have also stopped using PC's because they were so fragile and fickle . I went to Apple for simplicity and functionality. Does any body think they are reading this thread and give a hoot? I think they have become too big and forgot us little people. Oh well, maybe Elon will develop a phone and it will just plain work. We can only hope.

I updated to iOS 18 and now cannot create shared albums which means I can’t share bulk photos. I’ve tried to create a shared album four times and even though it says “publishing,” it does not. It doesn’t show up in my shared albums and the recipients are not getting the photos. What is going on with this new update?!!!

This is falling on deaf ears here. Although many may agree with your sentiment , you are preaching to the choir and Apple doesn't look at these threads. I did the same thing and it is useless. Your 81 up-votes are unfortunately also useless except for blowing off smoke and disappointment.

Everyone is but I posed the fix earlier in this thread.

Simply disappears. Not even in deleted section