iOS 18: How to Customize and Reorder the Photos App

[Devnul0]

Some of the lousy UX:

I don't want these suggestions in the collections showing up. Give me single-line options, like the previous app version, for albums and the various other utilties. They're *never* the album I want to look at.
The side-scrolling of the collection suggestions is just lousy. Home app has the same thing. That entire paradigm they're pushing is unpleasant to try to work with. And I'm really sick of wasting space showing me things that I don't want, I always have to tap to "see all" to get to what I want.
I try to scroll to the end of my photo library and it's not at the bottom any more because of these stupid collections. So I remove the collections. On iPad that's fine because there's a sidebar. On iPhone without that screen-wasting wrong-suggesting collection, you literally cannot get to your albums, deleted photos, hidden album, etc…
Exiting an album or a photo used to be a simple left-swipe. Now I have to use two hands and tap the tiny target of the X in the top right to close an album or photo. OR, accidentally swipe down just a hair too far and it annoyingly exits as well, which is extremely annoying when you're scrolling to the end of an album, where the behavior is REALLY wacky: if you've just opened the album and swipe, it takes you back to the main screen, but if you've already scrolled at all in the album, then it starts some generated video of the photos that I never, ever want. All I want is for the scrolling to stop because I've reached the end.
The hidden album has no choice for sorting, and as far as I'm concerned it's backwards.
It's far too easy to get to customize & reorder. Just like the lock and home screens, it's too easy to get in an edit/customize mode and screw up your configuration by accident.
And lastly, iCloud sync status is now buried under your profile icon. Swapping edit/customize and sync status would be good.

 

[SebCohen]

And yet they still don’t allow you to only keep the final version of an edited photo.

I “duplicate” and “revert” first version….does this hurt your brain even more? 🤌🤌🤌😎

 

[ReddJive]

this app is terrible. It's like they hired someone from Samsung to design it.

 

[jasonsmith_88]

Literally no one asked for the Photos to be rebuilt.

This is such a disaster. I hate the new Photos app so much. All I want to see is a grid of my photos and now I have to mess around with gestures to simply view my photos, even after customising the screen.

Designer: “Hey when users open the Photos app, what do we want them to see?”
Project Manager: “Uhh how about a bunch of irrelevant ****? And if they choose hide all of that, just show them whitespace”
Designer: “Are you sure we shouldn’t just show people their.. photos?”
Project Manager: “Question my authority again and you’re fired”

 

[ProbablyDylan]

Would be nice if we could expand the categories to occupy more vertical space. The horizontally scrolling albums group is genuinely super annoying.

 

[timborama]

I have now been trying to customise the Photos App in a way that works with my work flow, in particular Lightroom for mobile, I have used for over 10 years. But nothing works.

Questions:
1. How can I set up sth like a recent Camera Roll album. Recent saves does not work, the day view does not really work
2. within the albums is there no way to sort by latest addition? when I edit a picture in Lightroom and export back to my phone it will mix all pictures ab. it is a nightmare: I no longer know which ones to keep and which ones to delete

Can't believe I now spent over 1 week to come up with a layout that works with my photography work flow. Any help appreciated

I’ve spent 5 days trying over and over, wiping and resyncing, tried shared vs sync, fiddled every setting and collection. Nothing works. I’m so over it, I’ve wiped my 16PM and requested return/refund. Life is too short to be tortured by such a POS app.

 

[MushuMax]

Anyone know a quick way to get to the map view?

There needs to be a way to order the items within the sections as well. Putting Map at the bottom of the list is ridiculous with no way to reorder.

 

[timborama]

I completely disagree. I love that they got rid of the mostly redundant camera roll. Initially I expected to hate it, but having spent a few weeks using it I became quite fond of it. Maybe you just need to give it a chance?

I’ll go out on a limb here and say (1) you’re someone that does not organize their photos and would rather let the device pick the organization scheme for you, (2) don’t use desktop/Mac to organize into albums and sync back to the device, and (3) have bought in 100% to the cloud photo mentality.

Not judging, but correct me if I’m wrong…

 

[timborama]

There needs to be a way to order the items within the sections as well. Putting Map at the bottom of the list is ridiculous with no way to reorder.

View attachment 2427932

Ya. It’s strange the other sections (collections) are (de)selectable and orderable, but these “filter” ones are not. Go figure 🤷

 

[MacFan782040]

There needs to be a way to order the items within the sections as well. Putting Map at the bottom of the list is ridiculous with no way to reorder.

View attachment 2427932

Put map under "pinned" not utilities.

 

[alexandr]

I’ll go out on a limb here and say (1) you’re someone that does not organize their photos and would rather let the device pick the organization scheme for you, (2) don’t use desktop/Mac to organize into albums and sync back to the device, and (3) have bought in 100% to the cloud photo mentality.

Correct me if I’m wrong…

You're completely wrong. Being slightly OCD — I'm obsessed with organization, precisely why I hated camera roll.

I used to sync from my Mac, but recently decided against it as it's impossible to delete something on the phone and have those changes sync to the Mac. At least I haven't found a way to do this.

I have never used iCloud for photos.

Great job on the whole limb thing

 

[timborama]

You're completely wrong. Being slightly OCD — I'm obsessed with organization, precisely why I hated camera roll.

I used to sync from my Mac, but recently decided against it as it's impossible to delete something on the phone and have those changes sync to the Mac. At least I haven't found a way to do this.

I have never used iCloud for photos.

Great job on the whole limb thing

The roll and Mac organization go hand in hand. The Mac removed those items from the roll as you offload them. That just the way it (just) worked. If you’re not using cloud and not using mac, not used keywords, etc etc, then 18 photos is perfect for you. You’ll have an ever growing, unmanageable Library grid at the top. o hope you and your OCD can accept whatever groupings Apple decides is “best” for you. Enjoy!

 

[alexandr]

The roll and Mac organization go hand in hand. The Mac removed those items from the roll as you offload them. That just the way it (just) worked. If you’re not using cloud and not using mac, not used keywords, etc etc, then 18 photos is perfect for you. You’ll have an ever growing, unmanageable Library grid at the top. o hope you and your OCD can accept whatever groupings Apple decides is “best” for you. Enjoy!

I was referring to syncing albums from the photo app on a Mac. In order to remove them from my iPhone I had to delete them on my Mac a sync. The same way that importing music from a Mac works — it's not ideal. I would like to delete a song sometimes, but I know it'll just get re-added next time I sync, unless I remove it from a playlist on my Mac.

My OCD is very appreciative of the flexibility that iOS 18 photo app offers. But if you choose to return your 16PM and remain on iOS 17 forever — best of luck to ya)

 

[gank41]

I love that they got rid of the mostly redundant camera roll.

Well, I guarantee you'd be in the minority with that one. And to remove what is probably the MOST used feature of a Photos app seems pretty short sided and ill informed.

 

[alexandr]

Well, I guarantee you'd be in the minority with that one. And to remove what is probably the MOST used feature of a Photos app seems pretty short sided and ill informed.

I don't give two craps about being in the minority — I'm speaking my opinion here. Also, I suspect that Apple made this decision consciously and gave it the necessary thought. You can be as salty as you want, I doubt they'll change it back.

 

[Ameer_1]

The photo app is just messed up they should've given us the option to keep the photo boxes the way they were on iOS 17

 

[Bamff]

It just works.. 😑

 

[TVreporter]

Is it too much to ask to bring back iPhoto?

 

[philstubbington]

I hid everything besides Albums. Now I can live with it again.

What would actually have been useful is to show me which photos in my endless feed have yet to be sorted into Albums or tell me what Album photo X is part of. On my Samsung device I can tell by a little indicator on the thumbnail.

It is so hard to sort photos into albums on iOS unless you do it right away because I am always like "hmmmm did I already sort those photos into Albums? hmmm where did I leave off last time".

I also don't understand the "on this day" memories push notifications like Id expect it to be from actually last year at this time? instead its just a random collection of some time in September of last year. That ain't "on this day"

Albums are a bit weird, IMO. I share every photo pretty much and I create an album of photos that I’ve shared (eg a holiday) and the album isn’t shared. So I have to create a shared album and send a link via iMessage or AirDrop to share it 🤷🏼

 

[Eureka20]

I absolutely hate this update. This is a nightmare! I can't find half of my stuff and these stupid slideshows start playing constantly. I was hoping for them to let me search for a folder when I had multiple images selected to 'add' to a folder, but nope-- we get this crap instead. The UI for the image editing is garbage as well. It's so cluttered and busy.

 

[svish]

Good article. Have to get used to the new photos app. But happy to see that customization is possible.

 

[Hank001]

I absolutely hate this update. This is a nightmare! I can't find half of my stuff and these stupid slideshows start playing constantly. I was hoping for them to let me search for a folder when I had multiple images selected to 'add' to a folder, but nope-- we get this crap instead. The UI for the image editing is garbage as well. It's so cluttered and busy.

Another nightmare: one cannot downgrade to an older version like we can do on a Mac. Perhaps Brussels can make this a requirement.

Is it too much to ask to bring back iPhoto?

That'd be great. And while they're at it, give us Aperture as well. Even if stuck on v3 it would still be a vast improvement over the Photos app.

 

[timeislove]

The photos app is a mess. Whatever intern that was allowed to design this atrocity needs to go back to the mail room.

me too... the revamped UI looks like the works done by newbies.

anyone noticed that grid view in library looks inconsistent with that in other views, such as album, utilities, trips and search results.

while the grid view in library looks more like that in IOS 17, thick gaps are kept among the thumbnails in other grid views. it looks SO ugly, like a wall of tiles!

inconsistency in UI design is unacceptable!

 

[timeislove]

Exactly. And then people wonder Why all the negativity. Because Apple spends a lot of energy on chasing rainbows, but basic functions don’t improve or get worse.

guess apple had put too much effort on complying with EU and chasing google for AI.

the photo app' upgrade is definitely a failure. the revamp of UI is not welcomed by most of the users, the most of all it did not introduce any new features.

 

[citysnaps]

I just want to see my photos in the order I took them, and with a decent preview size! I don't want to see 1cm x 1cm versions. UGH.

You can easily make your iPhone's scrollable photo grid any size you want (and any time you want) by using your thumb and index finger to zoom in and out. It's a slick feature. Especially if you have a lot of photos on your phone (around 28,000 for me).

It's easy to use and it works great.