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organise photos by date taken

I've just opened Photos and find that the sets of pictures I've uploaded over the years, instead of being in order of upload dates, are jumbled up - so that a set from 2015 may be followed by a set from 2009, a set from 2014 by a set from 2011, and so on. How can I reorganise them so as to get back to date order, oldest first, most recent last?

iMac, macOS Sierra (10.12.2)

Posted on Feb 11, 2017 7:06 AM

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Question marked as Top-ranking reply

Posted on Feb 11, 2017 8:17 AM

Where are you looking at the photos in Photos? There are two predefined views "Photos" and "All Photos".

  • The "Photos" view with the moments, collections, years is sorted by the Capture date of the photos, ascending.
  • The "All Photos" album is sorted by the date the photos have been added to the Photos Library, descending.


Both views have a fixed sort order.

But you can create your own "My All Photos" album as a smart album and sort it by the capture date or the title.


File > New Smart Album. Then use a rule "Date is after 1.1.1000" to include all photos from your library.

User uploaded file

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Question marked as Top-ranking reply

Feb 11, 2017 8:17 AM in response to palquest

Where are you looking at the photos in Photos? There are two predefined views "Photos" and "All Photos".

  • The "Photos" view with the moments, collections, years is sorted by the Capture date of the photos, ascending.
  • The "All Photos" album is sorted by the date the photos have been added to the Photos Library, descending.


Both views have a fixed sort order.

But you can create your own "My All Photos" album as a smart album and sort it by the capture date or the title.


File > New Smart Album. Then use a rule "Date is after 1.1.1000" to include all photos from your library.

User uploaded file

Dec 3, 2017 11:04 AM in response to lindy5049

See the screenshot in my post above: Re: organise photos by date taken


You can sort any album by the capture date, as long as it is an album or smart album you created yourself. The predefined albums that come with photos have a fixed, predefined sort order.

But this requires that you are running a newer version of Photos. It is not possible in Photos 1,0 on Yosemite.

User uploaded file

Feb 11, 2017 8:18 AM in response to léonie

Thank you for your swift reply. I looked in All Photos, and that's where I found the uploaded sets all jumbled up (and, on marking all pix for edit and going to View>Sort> found the only option available, Keep Sorted by Oldest Date Added, ticked but knocked back, and thus impossible to re-activate). Following your advice, however, looking in Photos I found the sets in date order, oldest first. Thanks again.

organise photos by date taken

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