Universal How to sort ALBUM order in iOS/iPadOS 14.1 Photos app??

[Jim Lahey]

Hi. This is infuriating me and I hope someone can please help. In macOS Photos app, you can sort the album display order automatically with View>Sort. Does anyone know how this can be done in iOS/iPadOS 14? I don't mean sorting photos within an album, and I don't mean sorting the album order manually with Edit. I want to be able to organise my albums automatically by name, date ascending, or date descending. Just as I can in macOS (10.15.7) Photos.

The view order on my iOS devices does not sync with those on my Macs, and nor does it stay organised if I move the albums around manually. So, even if I manually edited the iOS display order to match that of my Macs, it will randomly reorder them itself for no apparent reason and undo all my work. I have lots of albums in my library and would like to not have to keep editing the display order after iOS decides to move one several places up or down the list...even if I haven't edited, added or removed photos from that album in months.

Please tell me I'm missing something obvious?

Thanks for reading.

 

[Jim Lahey]

It gets worse. There is syncing (sort of) in iCloud...but the default (and uneditable) album display order in iOS 14 appears to be oldest first. I have my Macs organised as newest first. I just tried manually shifting the albums around to match my Mac, but when I do so it flips the Mac album to the other end of the list. So right now it's impossible to have my albums organised the same across devices.

This must surely be a bug? Or just a massive oversight. Extremely irritating.

 

[0128672]

You're not missing something obvious; it's just not an option in the iOS/iPadOS versions. The only option is Edit.

View photos and videos on iPhone

In Photos on your iPhone, view photos and videos and browse through your photos and videos in the library.

support.apple.com

 

[Jim Lahey]

You're not missing something obvious; it's just not an option in the iOS/iPadOS versions. The only option is Edit.

View photos and videos on iPhone

In Photos on your iPhone, view photos and videos and browse through your photos and videos in the library.

support.apple.com

Thanks. I figured a much. Pretty preposterous if you can't rely on iCloud to sync them properly and not upside down. I am restoring the library on my Mac mini in the hope of fixing the random switching on other devices, but I have a feeling this isn't going to end well.

Thanks for responding.

 

[Jim Lahey]

So, obviously this isn't an especially interesting topic, but I will complete it for the benefit of those who may stumble across it in a future search result.

I appear to have fixed this by finding the individual rogue albums that refused to sync properly in iOS. Then, in macOS, I changed the 'key photo' for each of those albums. This did the trick and now all my albums are synced properly across devices. This is very unexpected behaviour. Which by definition makes it a bug.

 

[0128672]

So, obviously this isn't an especially interesting topic, but I will complete it for the benefit of those my stumble across it in a future search result.

I appear to have fixed this by finding the individual rogue albums that refused to sync properly in iOS. Then, in macOS, I changed the 'key photo' for each of those albums. This did the trick and now all my albums are synced properly across devices. This is very unexpected behaviour. Which by definition makes it a bug.

That's a pretty interesting solution and it surprises me that the key photo did the trick. Nice work. I imagine you'll be submitting Photos feedback to Apple about it.

 

[Jim Lahey]

That's a pretty interesting solution and it surprises me that the key photo did the trick. Nice work. I imagine you'll be submitting Photos feedback to Apple about it.

Indeed. Feedback submitted. My best guess is that by changing the key photo in macOS, iOS considered the album to be edited. Both the album photo and its position in the library then instantly switched places live and in realtime over iCloud.

Anyway thanks for your help and interest. Hopefully someone at Apple will investigate in due course to see if they can replicate.

 

[prog99]

So, obviously this isn't an especially interesting topic, but I will complete it for the benefit of those who may stumble across it in a future search result.

I appear to have fixed this by finding the individual rogue albums that refused to sync properly in iOS. Then, in macOS, I changed the 'key photo' for each of those albums. This did the trick and now all my albums are synced properly across devices. This is very unexpected behaviour. Which by definition makes it a bug.

Thanks, this sort of worked for a bit and then mysteriously tonight your clever workaround just gave up.
Time for yet another feature/bug report on photos.

 

[prog99]

Hi @Jim Lahey , it gets stranger. Ran a repair on the photo album on my Mac out of curiosity and bang, everything perfectly synced up and ordered correctly on iCloud, iPhone and iPad.

 

[Jim Lahey]

Hi @Jim Lahey , it gets stranger. Ran a repair on the photo album on my Mac out of curiosity and bang, everything perfectly synced up and ordered correctly on iCloud, iPhone and iPad.

I tried a repair at the time and it did nothing.

 

[prog99]

I tried a repair at the time and it did nothing.

Thats a shame, my albums are now sorting perfectly again including newly added ones with your key photo trick.

 

[stephenschimpf]

Please tell me I'm missing something obvious?

No, it was all destroyed around the time Catalina came out. Before that, my albums were always in sync on my iMac, iPhone, and iPad Pro.

When I upgraded to Catalina, I found that if I create a new album on my iMac (I always do that sort of thing on my iMac, but prefer to edit photos on my iPhone) the album appeared at the top of the list on my iPhone and iPad Pro, but when I later sorted the albums on my iMac, the order didn't sync with my iPhone or iPad Pro.

I figured this was a bug in Catalina and would be fixed, but with every update my hopes diminished.

My solution was to sort the albums alphabetically (which is what I want) on my iMac, and then rebuild the library. After that, my iPhone and iPad Pro are synced. Unfortunately, they don't stay that way, so as I create new albums I have to rebuild the library to keep things synced.

More recently (I don't remember after which update) I've found that while I'm working on my library on my iMac, the order of the albums will change by themselves! The albums at the top of the list on the left will change. Maybe it's trying to put the albums I last looked at nearer the top of the list or something?

I preferred things the way they were, where I could sort my albums and they'd be left alone, and they'd also be synced with my other Apple devices. Just like the new App Library, Apple seems to think they know best how to sort my stuff, and if I want to find something, I should just use the search feature.

 

[Jim Lahey]

Thanks. Yes it’s all a bit fubar. I now noticed that my albums are differently sorted between two Macs and Apple TV, and will all randomly move around. For now my iOS devices are remaining synced, so that’s something.

I am not naive enough to expect no bugs, but sorting album orders and syncing them in the cloud seems like pretty basic functionality in 2020. Every time I notice a library has muddled itself, I die a little inside. I don’t think they’ll ever fix it either. I’m a big Apple fan but sometimes they really test my patience.

 

[YsQ]

Not to mention how badly needed **photo albums list sorting by name** is for people who only have an iPhone and no mac machinery. It's now 2022 with 256 GB devices and more for heaven's sake. The only iPhone app I know of that_is actually capable of sorting my iOS v15 albums list by name is Readdle's Documents (where all empty albums sit at_end of list) -- Ukraine_based !!