IOS 18.3.1
I have selected say 50 photos from my library, now I need to get them organised into sub folders.
as I build the contents of the sub folders I am unable to select photos from another subfolder
iPad Air (M2, 2024)
In a hierarchical structure the sub- concept means, essentially, contained within something else. So a Folder contains a sub folder and so on. There is no concept of 'sub-albums' in Photos. There are just albums. One album cannot contain another one. At times you seem to use the phrases sub album and sub folder interchangeably. So again, I'm not entirely sure what you're asking. But I do think the core issue here is that you're trying to create a hierarchy in an app that tries to avoid them.
If you want to achieve hierarchy then I suggest Keywords are a better way to work.
Tag all 3000 images with 'Lake District'. Then a simple search finds them all. Add a tag for Town A to the relevant images. Then adding that to your search term will find only the images from Town A in the Lake District, and so on. It's a job of work, but you can take multiple images at once so not as arduous it seems at first glance.
You can do something similar with the Location feature, perhaps even automatically, if the camera creating the images supports that.
In a hierarchical structure the sub- concept means, essentially, contained within something else. So a Folder contains a sub folder and so on. There is no concept of 'sub-albums' in Photos. There are just albums. One album cannot contain another one. At times you seem to use the phrases sub album and sub folder interchangeably. So again, I'm not entirely sure what you're asking. But I do think the core issue here is that you're trying to create a hierarchy in an app that tries to avoid them.
If you want to achieve hierarchy then I suggest Keywords are a better way to work.
Tag all 3000 images with 'Lake District'. Then a simple search finds them all. Add a tag for Town A to the relevant images. Then adding that to your search term will find only the images from Town A in the Lake District, and so on. It's a job of work, but you can take multiple images at once so not as arduous it seems at first glance.
You can do something similar with the Location feature, perhaps even automatically, if the camera creating the images supports that.
In hierachry thats completely incorrect, it should be perhaps be headed "Photo Grouping", and under that "Albums" and "Folders".
The terminology may be a bit misleading, but the only purpose of folders is to structure your collection of albums. As Yer_Man already has explained beautifully, a folder can only hold albums or sub folders. and albums can only hold media items (images or videos).
You can nest the folder structure deeply, like an upside down tree. The subfolders will create branches, the albums will be the leaves of the tree.
Folders on their own are pretty useless - at the bottom of nested folders should always be an album with media items. So it makes sense to call the section "Albums".
On an iPhone or iPad it helps to plan and to create the folder structure in advance, because it is not supported to move albums between folders, like we can on a Mac. We have to create the albums right inside the folder where we want them.
Managing the photos library is much more versatile on the Mac than on the iPad or iPhone. If you have a Mac as well, you may want to manage the folders and albums on your Mac and sync the structure to your iPad with iCloud Photos. On the Mac we can also use keywords and smart albums to search for the photos. The previous versions of iOS and iPadOS would show us the keywords in the search results, even if we could not assign them directly on the iPhone or iPad, but this is no longer supported on iOS18/iPadOS 18.
Thanks Leonie and Yer-man I appreciate you taking the time to respond.
I took my ipad to my Art class today and was able to find my photos (the subjects of my painting today) fairly quickly using my structure of folders and albums - excellent.
I apologise for the term "sub albums", perhaps should have used the term "level" that may have been more descriptive. I used to create and manage databases in a previous life and operate Project Management Software (level driven) , and write code too (also level driven before OOP code) - sadly missed! so I do understand hierarchy, I just have to understand the "apple way". No sweat.
To follow Leonie's analogy, levels would be the branches of an upside down tree, as each branch splits into other branches then sub levels are produced. Level 1 album, level 2 album, and the albums at each level would sit in container folders (as Yer-man stated). You can also have Level 1.1, 1.2, 1.3 2, 2.1 etc but that another methodology (work breakdown structures or document breakdown structures).
The issue I had: Adding photos to an album(target) from another album(source) in perhaps a different folder.
The reason I wanted to do that, was because the lower level albums have fewer photos in them and therefore easier to search through and find what I want.
Silly Solution: When I opened the target album and clicked create, all I saw on my screen was the list on the left "Photos", days, people and pets, memories.... etc etc etc. Ah... but I'm forgetting the modern way. i.e. scroll down endlessly in the hope you'll find something to improve your day, so I found I could scroll down the list and there way way down was "Albums" (oh joy!) and of course I was able to navigate within that very quickly and find the photo from the source album.
Great and problem solved.
My next job will be to get all the clutter off the screens, things like "wallpaper suggestion, featured photos" belong somewhere else, I'm sure some of its useful (really..), but I like to decide what's useful to me, ergo "albums, favourites" right at the top of the screen.
..... and after that tame the beast, to start with, teach it to stop from starting random slide shows and playing random music, it disturbs my fellow members of my Art class!
Many thanks again both for the help. No need of further discussion.
In Photos only albums can hold photographs. Folders can hold albums or other folders, but not images on their own. So can you explain again what you're trying to do?
Thanks for reply Yer_man
To recap:
I'm building is a hierarchical grouping of photos from my stock of around 3000 of views all around the County.
The 3000 photos will be broken down and grouped thus: sets of photos in sub albums contained in folders. Each folder will represent all the views from a geographical area, the sub albums within will represent views of places within that area. So if I was to lay out all the sub albums and folders I would see my 3000 photos. (Simple as!)
I don't want to be searching through all 3000 each time to select a photo for this album or that, so:
4. Now I only have to work through the Lake District 200 photos to post to sub albums Town A, Town B etc
And the issue:
Occassionally a photo may sit in two sub albums (say a river goes through two towns) , so I thought I could add that photo (From Town A album) to the Town B album. Why do that? because I'd be searching for the river photo in 20 of Town A photos instead of 250 of Lake District. But When I choose add photo, the dialogue doesn't offer the option to navigate to the sub folder.
This really is simple stuff I must be doing something wrong?
And just an observation: What I do find confusing is that when I create a folder with sub-albums in it, the front page of the photo app puts the FOLDER under the heading of ALBUMS. In hierachry thats completely incorrect, it should be perhaps be headed "Photo Grouping", and under that "Albums" and "Folders".
Photos app - cannot add photos from an album to an album
