Albums in Photos not showing up on iPhone

Are you using iOS 10.3.2, rob_earth? What you are saying is working for me on my iPad with iOS 9.3.5, but no longer on the iPhone with iOS 10.3.2.

It should work, as Apple writes:

Keep your photos safely stored and up to date on all of your devices - Apple Support

Choose the app or folder that you want to sync from.

If you choose to sync a folder with sub-folders, the first level of sub-folders will appear as albums on your device.

One, it still does not work for me.

I did my research. At the time it was new and I asked a lot of questions at the Apple Store before I made the switch.

With Apple's documentation you need to read between the lines. The support documents tell us, what will be working, but rarely, what not will be working. So it is very hard to search for limitations and unsupported features.

For example, the iCloud documentation promises, that the photos, videos, Moments, Collections, and Years and all of your Memories and People are updated everywhere. But nowhere is mentioned, that albums or even smart albums will sync. https://support.apple.com/en-gb/HT204264

iCloud Photo Library automatically keeps every photo and video you take in iCloud, so you can access your library from any device, anytime you want. Any changes you maketo your collection on one device, change on your other devices too. Your photos and videos stay organized into Moments, Collections, and Years. And all of your Memoriesand People are updated everywhere. That way you can quickly find the moment, family member, or friend you're looking for.

The document describing how iCloud Photo Library will sync between Macs mentions the albums and smart albums, https://support.apple.com/en-us/HT204486

So we can be sure, that the smart albums will sync to iCloud. And this document is one of the few documents that are describing the limitations in detail and lists the items that will not sync between two macs.

Go To IPHONE Settings - Photos - Summarise Photos - Just Click on the Tab for 2 or 3 times - Your Problem Should be Solved

This worked for me!

Sure you can as I said - I do it daily between two Macs and three IOS devices - it works perfectly

to sync the albums (rather than just the photos in the albums) you have to use iCloud Photo Library which does sync regular albums and folders

LN

What ever - the only way to do it is ICPL - the fact that you choose not to use it does not mean it is not possible, it means you reject the only wrking solution (which millions of people use with no problems)

LN

Ok - but that option is not available and throwing a tantrum will not change that - If you do not like Photos then use different software - Photos is totally optional and many people use different software

And Apple is not here - only experienced volunteers who help people use the software as it is released

LN

Sorry, the network dropped out while I have been still editing.

It should read: " iTunes will not reproduce deeply nested folders of albums, but you can sync albums, if they are at the top level of the library or at the first folder level. "

Hi,

I have the exact same situation. I just succeeded in organizing the albums on my phone (I have dozens of them, and I need them for work to show different projects to different people). I cannot decide if the inability to sync my albums is less, or more irritating than the people telling you this won't work and not offering help.

The first issue - if you are using an external drive - don't. Copy the photos into the "Pictures" directory, within all their albums. That worked.

I hope I helped.

iTunes is not synching ANY of the albums I have in Photos on my Mac to Photos on my iPhone. Even if the albums are at the top level.

In iTunes, I have chosen the Photos app and selected the two albums that I would like to sync to my iPhone. When I Sync, iTunes then copies the photos from the selected albums to my iPhone, but not the Albums, so the photos are scattered amongst the albums that Apple has created (People, Places, Videos, Selfies....)

I tested again with my iPad.

On my Mac I am using Photos 2.0 and iTunes 12.6.

I selected 20 albums in iTunes from Photos on my Mac. The albums were inside folders. I also selected a few Faces albums.

All 20 albums appeared on the iPad as separate albums. The only problem is, that all People albums synced, not only the albums I selected.

LarryHN, you are wrong, I have limited bandwidth since I travel full time and have to rely upon my Verizon HotSpot. I had the same issue as Aaaaaack on my iPhone 6 Plus and iPAD Pro 9.7 as well as other apple devices. I was using an External HD syncing was never right, so I decided to use Photos (only for the syncing, nothing else) I ran into the issue we are discussing. What I did was to 1) unsync all my photos and have them removed from my device and backed up my device, 2) I then closed iTunes. 3) I reconnected my device and let the backup complete, I then clicked “all albums” for one device or “selected the albums for another device” (noticed I did not click “All photos and Albums” (this might work now that I have resolved how to do the sync). I let the the sync happen, 4) I then disconnected and closed iTunes. I found no albums but all the photos. 5) I then shut down my device. 6) I then reconnected my device and let the backup and sync happen. for the device with “all albums checked” the albums showed up. For the one where I only checked certain albums, the albums were not there, so I checked another album to be added, applied and synced and the Albums showed up. SO the real answer IS YES you can get what you want through iTune without going through iCloud. There seems to be an issue with the sync process for me at least ( I am running iTunes 12.6.1.25 on an iMAC running 10.12.5 and my devices are on iOS 10.3.1)

What I did was to 1) unsync all my photos and have them removed from my device and backed up my device, 2) I then closed iTunes. 3) I reconnected my device and let the backup complete, I then clicked “all albums” for one device or “selected the albums for another device” (noticed I did not click “All photos and Albums” (this might work now that I have resolved how to do the sync). I let the the sync happen, 4) I then disconnected and closed iTunes. I found no albums but all the photos. 5) I then shut down my device. 6) I then reconnected my device and let the backup and sync happen. for the device with “all albums checked” the albums showed up. For the one where I only checked certain albums, the albums were not there, so I checked another album to be added, applied and synced and the Albums showed up. SO the real answer IS YES you can get what you want through iTune without going through iCloud.

It looks like we now have random results instead of a reliable syncing procedure. Since I upgraded to iOS 10.3.2 on the iPhone I could not sync any of my albums once to the iPhone using iTunes Photo Sync. I need to sync select albums, because my Photos Library is too large for the iPhone with only 64GB. There is no problem to sync selected smart albums and faces albums to my iOS 9 iPad.

Leonie, WOW, I am glad I have not upgraded to 10.3.2 yet and won’t until this issue is fixed. Now I have a question if the issue only with iPhones? Do you have 10.3.2 on your iPAD? Appreciate the heads up - Mike

So it could be your synced photos and folder structures are really there; you just can't see them. I have no idea why Apple made this change. But with the upcoming iOS 11 and the new Files tool, it might change again.

It is broken since iOS 10.3 😠

The same Photos Library synced with iTunes will sync perfectly to my iPad 3 with iOS9.3.5, but when I sync with the iPhone with iOS 10.3.2 with iTunes Photo Sync, the results are random.