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How to Organize Your Photos on iPhone
If you're an iPhone user who takes pictures regularly, you'll likely have thousands of photos in your library, taking up tons of storage space. That's when organization becomes essential. Fortunately, there are multiple ways to go about it.
Before You Begin: Some General Space-Saving Tips
While we will break down the specific ways that you can organize your photos, we also wanted to give you a few space-saving tips to start:
- Always review your photos. It's easy to take a few photos and forget about them, but those "few photos" can add up. To avoid a future backlog, get into the habit of looking over your photos after you've shot them. Quickly decide on which ones to delete.
- Don't keep near-duplicate photos. Taking a bunch of similar photos can give you many options—but if the photos are nearly identical, you don't need all of them. Get in the habit of deleting duplicate iPhone photos to reduce storage clutter.
- Optimize your iPhone storage. If you go to Settings > Apps > Photos on your iPhone, you'll see an option called iCloud Photos under iCloud. Once enabled, your iPhone will automatically upload and store your full-sized photos on iCloud.
Now that you know how to save space on your iPhone, let's check out organizing your images in more detail.
Organize Photos on Your iPhone Into Albums
Let's say you want to organize your photos into albums. This is the most straightforward method of arranging photos, as you can group photos that span multiple locations, dates, people, or events.
Here's how you can create a new photo album:
- Launch the Photos app, scroll past your photo library, and tap Albums. If you can't find Albums here, scroll all the way to the bottom and tap Customize & Reorder. Now, select Albums.
- In the top-left corner of the screen, tap Create and choose New Album.
- Name your album, and tap the plus (+) icon to begin adding images to your album. When you're done, hit Done.
- If you'd like to choose an image to represent your entire album, tap Edit Key Photo. Then, pick an image and tap Done.
To further organize your albums, you can also group multiple albums into folders. For example, if you take photos of different projects for your work, you may want to create a "Work" folder to sort all work-related albums.
- Head to the Albums section again, and tap Create in the top-left corner.
- Choose New Folder and then name your new folder.
- Then, tap the plus (+) sign, select all the albums you'd like to add to your folder, and then tap Add.
- Finally, tap Done.
If there are photos on your phone that you forgot to add to an album:
- Go to your main photo grid and tap Select in the top-right corner.
- Select the photos that you want to add.
- Tap the ellipsis (...) button in the bottom-right corner of your screen.
- Select Add to Album, and choose the album where you'd like to place the photos.
Alternatively, you can scroll past your photo library, tap Albums, and choose the album to which you'd like to add the photos. Then, simply tap the plus (+) sign, select the images you'd like to add, and hit Add.
From here on, whenever you need to find photos from a multi-day event, you should be able to go into your Photos app and view the appropriate album!
How to Organize Photos on Your iPhone by Name
The next best way to organize photos on your iPhone is by person. This method makes it easy to find pictures of yourself, friends, or family.
Modern versions of iOS can recognize faces, allowing your iPhone to detect and arrange your photos by person automatically. These unique faces are recognized as individuals, allowing the iPhone to group photos of that person together, regardless of date or event, or even if they're in a group photo.
However, organizing your photos by name or person requires some setup. Here's how to do it:
- Scroll past your photo library and tap People (or People & Pets, if pets are detected in your gallery).
- You'll see thumbnails for each person your iPhone recognizes. Select one of those faces, and you'll see all the pictures that contain that person.
- You'll also see that some people's faces don't have names. To name them, select the face and tap Name This Person. Then, type their name in and hit Done.
Once a person is named, all future photos with their face will be tagged and searchable by their name, making it easy to find them anytime.
If you'd like to create an album for a specific person, you can do so by selecting their face and tapping Select in the top-right corner. Then, choose Select All, and tap the ellipses (...) button in the bottom right corner of the screen. Finally, select Add to Album and tap the plus (+) sign to create an album for them.
How to Organize Photos on Your iPhone by Location
The iPhone Photos app will also sort your pictures by location if you travel a lot. But, just like the previous method, you must set it up first.
When you take a picture with your iPhone, the picture's metadata automatically records the location of the photo—so long as you have Location Services turned on for the Camera app.
Here's how to manage Location Services on your iPhone:
- Open the Settings app.
- Go to Privacy & Security > Location Services. Make sure the toggle at the top is enabled.
- Now, scroll down and select the Camera app.
- Make sure While Using the App is selected.
Now that this setting is turned on, your iPhone will automatically geotag new images. It will then sort these location-based photos into a pre-made album.
To view your pictures:
- Scroll past your photo library and find Pinned Collections. Then, tap Map. If you don't see it, you may need to modify your Pinned Collections. To do so, simply tap Modify and tap the plus (+) sign next to Map under the Suggestions header.
- On the map, tap the thumbnail of the place you want to view. You'll see all the pictures from that location.
Filter Photos on Your iPhone
At times, you might only want to view screenshots in an album or just the images you've edited. Instead of scrolling through each picture manually, you can use the Photos app's built-in filtering options. Simply swipe past your photo library, tap Albums, and open the album you’d like to filter.
Next, tap the sorting icon and select Filter. A context menu will appear with six options: All Items, Favorites, Photos, Edited, Videos, and Screenshots. All you need to do is choose the type of photo you want to see.
When you're done and want to remove the filter, tap the icon that replaces the sorting icon, select Filter, and choose All Items. This isn't limited to albums only—you can also filter your entire gallery by following the same steps as above. Just make sure to be in your main photo grid instead!
Sort Your iPhone Photos
By default, the Photos app sorts images by the date they were captured. Essentially, this means photos are sorted based on their original timestamp, even if you receive them via AirDrop or save them from an app.
While it may be helpful in some cases, it can make it tricky to find photos you recently took, especially if you tend to save a lot of images. Thankfully, you can choose to stick with sorting your photo library by their original timestamps or choose to have them show up at the end of your timeline.
To do so, scroll through your library and tap the sorting icon as soon as it appears. A context menu will immediately appear with two options: Sort by Recently Added and Sort by Date Captured. Choose the former if you'd like to have your newest photos appear at the bottom of your library. On the other hand, choose the latter if you'd like your library to stay organized by the date you took the respective photos rather than when you saved them to your library.
When it comes to albums, you can also sort your images by Oldest First, Newest First, or in a Custom Order. To do this, head to the album you'd like to sort and simply follow the same steps outlined above. Then, choose your preferred sorting option.
With the quick tips and tricks mentioned above, you'll be well on your way to organizing photos on your iPhone! Doing so will not only help you declutter your gallery, but also help you find photos much quicker in the Photos app.
