All Devices How in the world do you organize photos?

[Super Spartan]

I've always been an Android user and have all my pics in sub folders (ie. Photoshoot / Date) then for example if I wanna upload a photo to Instagram, I would go to that particular fold in the file manager, click on the photo that I want then share it to my feed.

With the iPhone, I have all my photos in a folder called My Photos but the sub folder hierarchy is gone so when I try to upload a photo in Instagram, I have to sit there and scroll for minutes through the random mess of photos until I find the photo that I want.

I'm sure iOS can't be that dumb. What am I doing wrong here and how do you guys go on managing such scenarios.

 

[eyoungren]

I've always been an Android user and have all my pics in sub folders (ie. Photoshoot / Date) then for example if I wanna upload a photo to Instagram, I would go to that particular fold in the file manager, click on the photo that I want then share it to my feed.

With the iPhone, I have all my photos in a folder called My Photos but the sub folder hierarchy is gone so when I try to upload a photo in Instagram, I have to sit there and scroll for minutes through the random mess of photos until I find the photo that I want.

I'm sure iOS can't be that dumb. What am I doing wrong here and how do you guys go on managing such scenarios.

iOS is indeed that dumb.

Everything is located in the camera roll and any 'albums' you create are simply groups of pointers to the photos that already exist in the camera roll. Thus there is no filing of photos (ie., move instead of copy) by 'folder' as that's not a concept that exists in the Photos app as we generally understand it.

This was and still is one of the reasons I jailbreak.

 

[Jason2000]

I've always been an Android user and have all my pics in sub folders (ie. Photoshoot / Date) then for example if I wanna upload a photo to Instagram, I would go to that particular fold in the file manager, click on the photo that I want then share it to my feed.

With the iPhone, I have all my photos in a folder called My Photos but the sub folder hierarchy is gone so when I try to upload a photo in Instagram, I have to sit there and scroll for minutes through the random mess of photos until I find the photo that I want.

I'm sure iOS can't be that dumb. What am I doing wrong here and how do you guys go on managing such scenarios.

Not sure I understand what you are asking and or trying to do ? The Photos app is very easy to use and organize your photos with. So I think I am missing something you are asking.

 

[Strelok]

Click on “Photos” on the far left, then you can pick by year, month or day.

 

[Abazigal]

I've always been an Android user and have all my pics in sub folders (ie. Photoshoot / Date) then for example if I wanna upload a photo to Instagram, I would go to that particular fold in the file manager, click on the photo that I want then share it to my feed.

With the iPhone, I have all my photos in a folder called My Photos but the sub folder hierarchy is gone so when I try to upload a photo in Instagram, I have to sit there and scroll for minutes through the random mess of photos until I find the photo that I want.

I'm sure iOS can't be that dumb. What am I doing wrong here and how do you guys go on managing such scenarios.

That’s pretty much iOS photo organisation in a nutshell. You can create folders, but they are more tags than actually moving your photos.

The problem comes when certain apps don’t let you select the folders where your photos are organised in, leading to yes, endless scrolling while you try to locate the photo you want to upload (looking at you, Tapatalk).

 

[AbSoluTc]

I've always been an Android user and have all my pics in sub folders (ie. Photoshoot / Date) then for example if I wanna upload a photo to Instagram, I would go to that particular fold in the file manager, click on the photo that I want then share it to my feed.

With the iPhone, I have all my photos in a folder called My Photos but the sub folder hierarchy is gone so when I try to upload a photo in Instagram, I have to sit there and scroll for minutes through the random mess of photos until I find the photo that I want.

I'm sure iOS can't be that dumb. What am I doing wrong here and how do you guys go on managing such scenarios.

Instagram defaults to your recent photos. If you have made albums and organized your photos in that way, when you want to post to insta, tap at the top of the screen where it says “recent” and you can then select another album to search from.

Hope that helps. Some apps don’t allow that and it’s dumb. It’s not an iPhone or iOS thing, it’s an app/developer thing.

 

[eoblaed]

There are tons of way to view your photos. The way you're doing it is the most brute force. Feel free to click on all the buttons down there. You can quickly scroll through by year, month, date, you can search for things by location, person, or even object (eg. search for 'dog' or 'tree' or 'pool').

You can create your own albums and put photos 'in' them. Like others have pointed out, it's essentially tags, rather than copying/moving photos ... and thank goodness. It would be far too limiting, and far to storage intensive, to do it any other way. The way it's currently done, any one photo can exist in an arbitrary number of folders and can be found an aribtrary number of ways. Doing it the 'classic' way greatly limits how photos can be found, organized, etc.

 

[Khedron]

There are tons of way to view your photos. The way you're doing it is the most brute force. Feel free to click on all the buttons down there. You can quickly scroll through by year, month, date, you can search for things by location, person, or even object (eg. search for 'dog' or 'tree' or 'pool').

You can create your own albums and put photos 'in' them. Like others have pointed out, it's essentially tags, rather than copying/moving photos ... and thank goodness. It would be far too limiting, and far to storage intensive, to do it any other way. The way it's currently done, any one photo can exist in an arbitrary number of folders and can be found an aribtrary number of ways. Doing it the 'classic' way greatly limits how photos can be found, organized, etc.

Well Apple could still have their organisation with their database but allow photo files to be stored in different locations.

A 200+ GB photos library because Apple can only understand one location is not convenient, and is rather "brute force" itself.

 

[eyoungren]

There are tons of way to view your photos. The way you're doing it is the most brute force. Feel free to click on all the buttons down there. You can quickly scroll through by year, month, date, you can search for things by location, person, or even object (eg. search for 'dog' or 'tree' or 'pool').

You can create your own albums and put photos 'in' them. Like others have pointed out, it's essentially tags, rather than copying/moving photos ... and thank goodness. It would be far too limiting, and far to storage intensive, to do it any other way. The way it's currently done, any one photo can exist in an arbitrary number of folders and can be found an aribtrary number of ways. Doing it the 'classic' way greatly limits how photos can be found, organized, etc.

I have to disagree.

Finding the same picture over and over again because it's in multiple albums just increases what you have to wade through. Having it organized properly in albums means you can go right to it without having to wade through the camera roll. And since it's no longer stored in the camera roll you know it's in the album. You know exactly where it is.

If our computers handled photos the way this is done on iPhone/iPad we'd have a giant mess on our hands.

 

[johaen8]

The problem with the folder approach is that you can't have photos appear in multiple locations (without duplicates of course). For example, I might have an album called "The Kids", and I might have an album called "St. Louis trip 2019". I can have the same photos in both albums without them being duplicated. It is a far more powerful way to organize your photos than the traditional folder/folder/folder way of doing things.

 

[AbSoluTc]

I have to disagree.

Finding the same picture over and over again because it's in multiple albums just increases what you have to wade through. Having it organized properly in albums means you can go right to it without having to wade through the camera roll. And since it's no longer stored in the camera roll you know it's in the album. You know exactly where it is.

If our computers handled photos the way this is done on iPhone/iPad we'd have a giant mess on our hands.

Disagree. Once a photo is in a folder per your suggestion, it’s in whatever folder you put it in. Let’s say, just a date.

The way it is now, let’s me for instance have a picture show up in an album for a vacation and if I was on vacation with someone, that same picture could be in the album for that person.

When you put photos into folders, you limit yourself on how you find them. It’s only in that location. Some like that and that’s fine. Most wont always remember a date. Most remember a place, location, person or thing.

 

[se95dah]

What I love about the iPhone photos app is that I don’t need to organise photos. I can find photos by searching for locations, people, subjects.... and the “for you” tab does a great job of surfacing pictures from past adventures that make me smile every day

 

[eyoungren]

Disagree. Once a photo is in a folder per your suggestion, it’s in whatever folder you put it in. Let’s say, just a date.

The way it is now, let’s me for instance have a picture show up in an album for a vacation and if I was on vacation with someone, that same picture could be in the album for that person.

When you put photos into folders, you limit yourself on how you find them. It’s only in that location. Some like that and that’s fine. Most wont always remember a date. Most remember a place, location, person or thing.

Which is why I don't use folder names like that.

I use folder names, like "Screencaps, Wallpaper, Family, Pets, etc, etc". If there is some event I'll create a folder with that event title even, though that's rare. We don't get out much and we take pictures even less.

Your argument that it's only in one location is exactly why I prefer this. I know exactly where it is based on what kind of pic I am looking for - and if I wasn't lazy I know it WON'T be in the camera roll saving myself time.

In regards to most people (and this is NOT directed at you personally), some basic minimal engagement in organizing things rather than depending on something else to do it for me just seems logical to me. But people are lazy and would rather let others control things for them so they don't have to engage.
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What I love about the iPhone photos app is that I don’t need to organise photos. I can find photos by searching for locations, people, subjects.... and the “for you” tab does a great job of surfacing pictures from past adventures that make me smile every day

That's what I like least about it.

I want to organize photos according to my own system, not the one Apple is pushing on me.

 

[AustinIllini]

I have to disagree.

Finding the same picture over and over again because it's in multiple albums just increases what you have to wade through. Having it organized properly in albums means you can go right to it without having to wade through the camera roll. And since it's no longer stored in the camera roll you know it's in the album. You know exactly where it is.

If our computers handled photos the way this is done on iPhone/iPad we'd have a giant mess on our hands.

Yeah, pointers are the way to go. Folders are a dumpster fire for organizing photos

 

[Stevie jobz 2.0]

That’s pretty much iOS photo organisation in a nutshell. You can create folders, but they are more tags than actually moving your photos.

The problem comes when certain apps don’t let you select the folders where your photos are organised in, leading to yes, endless scrolling while you try to locate the photo you want to upload (looking at you, Tapatalk).

And folk still swear blind that ios is easier and simple to use. #priceless..
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Disagree. Once a photo is in a folder per your suggestion, it’s in whatever folder you put it in. Let’s say, just a date.

The way it is now, let’s me for instance have a picture show up in an album for a vacation and if I was on vacation with someone, that same picture could be in the album for that person.

When you put photos into folders, you limit yourself on how you find them. It’s only in that location. Some like that and that’s fine. Most wont always remember a date. Most remember a place, location, person or thing.

So if my folder name is Turkey vacation 2019, and every pic I took there is in that folder, how am i somehow being limited in how I find those pics. The location and date are in the header. Sorted.
Your logic is failing miserably my friend!!

 

[Stevie jobz 2.0]

The problem with the folder approach is that you can't have photos appear in multiple locations (without duplicates of course). For example, I might have an album called "The Kids", and I might have an album called "St. Louis trip 2019". I can have the same photos in both albums without them being duplicated. It is a far more powerful way to organize your photos than the traditional folder/folder/folder way of doing things.

I think you need to find out what powerful means old boy. On android, you can simply move, copy, duplicate, create album to your hearts content . If you decide to do nothing and just have the camera roll. You can view by location on google maps. View by date order if wanted. All very simple. But the main thing is that the simple option is there if you want it...

 

[Jim Lahey]

Creating an album is as easy as creating a folder. Folders in a filesystem don’t physically move data around anyway. They just point to the data already on disc. An album is no different to a folder in that regard.

The Apple system is a very powerful library when used properly. Creating albums is the key to organising the database efficiently.

 

[choreo]

I thought "scrolling" was the whole point of having an iPhone? All I see at the gym is people sitting on equipment scrolling for hours - their fingers are the only thing getting a workout!

 

[now i see it]

The iOS Photos app blows and it always has. Garbage.
One example: say you want to put 50 pictures into an album that are scattered everywhere in the camera roll. So you select them (easy), create a new album (easy) and drop their linked aliases there (easy). So far no problem.

Now let's say 1 month later you want to organize your camera roll again — but there's no way to know what photo is in what album just by scrolling through the camera roll. It is and always will be just a wall of nameless picture icons. Double checking to see if a photo already exists in an album gets tiresome after the first try— so to be sure, you end up having to drop all the pictures into albums over again to make sure they're in an album. It's a HORRIBLE system.

If this was how pictures had to be stored on a computer, it would be unacceptable and people would likely leave the platform-- but for some reason since it's iOS on a iPhone it's OK. Well it's not OK. It sucks

 

[profets]

The method of using folders / subfolders to truly move photos/files into a single location reminds me a lot of how iPhoto used to work. In the past I truly preferring that method for organizing photos (and even just directories on a hard disk sorted by date before iPhoto was common).

But I've enjoyed the newer Photos setup. With how often we're taking photos, it became more and more challenging to create events in iPhoto for every single photo when importing them from my iPhone.

Now its beautiful the way you can browse by day, month, year, event, etc. Can still create albums and sub-albums for sorting as you like too.

My one complaint though is you're limited with how much album management you can do on iOS. Things like moving albums into sub-albums can only be done on Photos for Mac.

 

[johaen8]

I think you need to find out what powerful means old boy. On android, you can simply move, copy, duplicate, create album to your hearts content . If you decide to do nothing and just have the camera roll. You can view by location on google maps. View by date order if wanted. All very simple. But the main thing is that the simple option is there if you want it...

I don't understand your point. You can do all those things on the iPhone as well.
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So if my folder name is Turkey vacation 2019, and every pic I took there is in that folder, how am i somehow being limited in how I find those pics. The location and date are in the header. Sorted.
Your logic is failing miserably my friend!!

Because you can't also have those pictures in a folder called "The Kids Fall 2019" without duplicating the photos.

 

[eyoungren]

I don't understand your point. You can do all those things on the iPhone as well.

Has Apple changed things then? As far as I know you cannot MOVE photos into an album. All you can do is create pointers. The same photo exists in the camera roll and the album.

Because you can't also have those pictures in a folder called "The Kids Fall 2019" without duplicating the photos.

Why do you want pictures is multiple albums? To me that's nuts. It's the same concept as tags in MacOS, a 'feature' I have always hated.

I want my stuff in one spot only. I can return to that same spot again and again because I know where it is. I don't need multiple spots where the same data exists over and over again cluttering things up.

 

[johaen8]

Has Apple changed things then? As far as I know you cannot MOVE photos into an album. All you can do is create pointers. The same photo exists in the camera roll and the album.

What is your infatuation with the camera roll? I never look at the camera roll. I either look at my albums, photos on a map, or the Year/Months/Days photo view. I don’t care that photos in my albums are also in the camera roll, because I never look at it.

 

[eyoungren]

What is your infatuation with the camera roll? I never look at the camera roll. I either look at my albums, photos on a map, or the Year/Months/Days photo view. I don’t care that photos in my albums are also in the camera roll, because I never look at it.

I look at the camera roll most of the time because the default way Apple chooses to sort things is NOT how I wish things to be sorted.

I don't look at pictures by day, month, year or whatever because that isn't how I reference the pictures I take. I look at them by type. And my types are not Apple's. Apple doesn't file photos by family, friends, screencaps, pets, junk, contact photos, etc, etc - all labels I use to classify my own photos that Apple doesn't.

 

[Stevie jobz 2.0]

I don't understand your point. You can do all those things on the iPhone as well.
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Because you can't also have those pictures in a folder called "The Kids Fall 2019" without duplicating the photos.

Your bottom post contradicts your top post. Firstly you say you do all the things that android does with pics. Such as move pics into an album. Then you say you cant, and you have to duplicate them. Maybe get your story straight and come back To us?