Photo albums - iOS - feature

I've been waiting over 10 years for Apple to make proper photo albums, like folders, similar to the Deleted and Hidden sections! How can I move a picture to an album and remove it from Recents/All Photos?


I hate that you can't properly organize your photos. I want to create multiple albums/folders, add password/name to them, or just create simple albums.


Imagine I'm a wakeboarder — I create an album with trick names and add those videos. But then, when I'm searching for other pictures in the "All Photos" section, the wakeboarding content is still there, making it harder to find what I'm looking for. Photos that should be in an album are still in "All Photos," which makes the albums feel pointless.


I did find a feature where you can remove screenshots and shared pictures from "All Photos," which is great! Apple should add a similar feature to remove photos that already exist in albums. There should be an option to show only screenshots, shared pictures, or not in album content. It would be so easy, and it should be a key function to help keep albums and photos organized.


I hope one day apple will fix/add this functionality 🙏


iPhone 16

Posted on Sep 22, 2024 2:30 PM

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Question marked as Top-ranking reply

Posted on Sep 23, 2024 8:03 AM

It seems to me that you are thinking of a picture as a thing that can only be on one place.


 In Photos, pictures aren't exactly "in" an album. When you "put a picture into an album," its name is added to a list of pictures to display together when the album is clicked, kind of like a music playlist, but for pictures. So two albums can both have the same picture name in their lists (like two playlists with the same song,)  and that picture will show up when you click either album, but there's only one picture file-- it's just on multiple lists. And when you remove a picture from an album, its name remains in the lists of other albums, and the file still remains in your Library. You don't get fewer pictures in your Library because you remove one from an album; you just get fewer names in the album list. And you probably don't expect a song to be removed from your music library because you put it in a playlist. It just doesn't make sense.


So albums give a specific view of your pictures. 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. And it can also be in a the "September 2015" album with other things that happened then. Each album is pointing to a single file stored in the Photos Library, so having pictures in multiple albums takes up no more storage space. This is only possible because of the way Photos makes use of lists of pictures from the main Library. As you can imagine, this is very powerful in organizing pictures.


There are special views provided by Apple. The Library View is provided by Apple to give a view of all of the pictures in the entire Library in the order of their "taken" dates. You can't remove a picture from the Library View, because that would be deleting it entirely. The Recents view shows all the pictures in the entire Library in the order they were added. The Hidden View shows all the pictures from the entire Library that you have marked to be hidden. You can't change how these views work. These albums always provide the same view so that, when something goes wrong or seems off, you (and we) can depend on them always showing the same thing, and there's no chance that someone snuck in and changed the order or removed pictures. 


On a Mac, by the way, we have Smart Albums. We can set up a Smart Album to show only pictures not in an album, for instance. What Photos for iOS really lacks are Smart Albums.


So think of albums as playlists. Does this make sense of what's going on? 



Similar questions

3 replies
Question marked as Top-ranking reply

Sep 23, 2024 8:03 AM in response to karliukena

It seems to me that you are thinking of a picture as a thing that can only be on one place.


 In Photos, pictures aren't exactly "in" an album. When you "put a picture into an album," its name is added to a list of pictures to display together when the album is clicked, kind of like a music playlist, but for pictures. So two albums can both have the same picture name in their lists (like two playlists with the same song,)  and that picture will show up when you click either album, but there's only one picture file-- it's just on multiple lists. And when you remove a picture from an album, its name remains in the lists of other albums, and the file still remains in your Library. You don't get fewer pictures in your Library because you remove one from an album; you just get fewer names in the album list. And you probably don't expect a song to be removed from your music library because you put it in a playlist. It just doesn't make sense.


So albums give a specific view of your pictures. 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. And it can also be in a the "September 2015" album with other things that happened then. Each album is pointing to a single file stored in the Photos Library, so having pictures in multiple albums takes up no more storage space. This is only possible because of the way Photos makes use of lists of pictures from the main Library. As you can imagine, this is very powerful in organizing pictures.


There are special views provided by Apple. The Library View is provided by Apple to give a view of all of the pictures in the entire Library in the order of their "taken" dates. You can't remove a picture from the Library View, because that would be deleting it entirely. The Recents view shows all the pictures in the entire Library in the order they were added. The Hidden View shows all the pictures from the entire Library that you have marked to be hidden. You can't change how these views work. These albums always provide the same view so that, when something goes wrong or seems off, you (and we) can depend on them always showing the same thing, and there's no chance that someone snuck in and changed the order or removed pictures. 


On a Mac, by the way, we have Smart Albums. We can set up a Smart Album to show only pictures not in an album, for instance. What Photos for iOS really lacks are Smart Albums.


So think of albums as playlists. Does this make sense of what's going on? 



Sep 23, 2024 8:20 AM in response to karliukena

I hope one day apple will fix/add this functionality 🙏


For me, this would be a deal-breaker. I would have to duplicate all photos, that I need in more than one album, which would be highly inconvenient. It would be a nuisance to have to replicate all edits and adjustments for all copies of the photo in all albums.


I am using the Shared iCloud Photos Library to store all photos, that I have done with, and that are organized in albums. When I move a photo to the Shared Library, it will remain in all albums, but I do no longer see it in my personal iCloud Library. The personal library is holding the "work in Progress", while the Shared Library is holding all items that are ready for viewing.

If you are already using iCloud Photos and do not need the Shared iCloud Photos Library for viewing, you can also try to use the Shared iCloud Library to keep the Photos in albums out of sight, when viewing only your personal library.


Using the Shared iCloud Photos Library to have two separate libraries on all devices - Apple Community


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Photo albums - iOS - feature

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