The iPhone and even the iPad lends itself extremely to take beautiful photos. All these photos are added to the photos application and can be synchronized via iCloud with all your devices. The photos app helps you to organize all your photos, but what is the difference between the display of the photo library and recently saved?
A question that is regularly asked to us. Many iOS, iPados and macOS users do not know the function of both views and incorrectly remove photos and videos. We are happy to explain what the difference is and why you should not just delete photos.
Recently, all photos or recently stored?
In recent years, Apple has regularly renewed the photos app and also the name of the recent view. In the previous versions of the photos app, the ‘recently saved’ album had the name ‘Recent’ or ‘All photos’. Due to the name change to ‘recently saved’ it has already become a bit clearer what the intention of this album is, the difference with the photo library is in the sorting.
Recently consult stored
The album can be found from iOS/iPados 18 on an iPhone or iPad under the ‘other’ category. You can also add recently to your fixed collections. In previous versions you found this at the ‘Albums’ tab.
On a Mac you can find it in the navigation column under ‘Other’. In previous versions of macOS you will find this view in the ‘imported’.
Difference between photos and recently stored
Both views show the same photos, but sorting is different. Photos show your entire library based on the date, also called ‘moments’. At the top are the oldest photos and the newest at the bottom.
The album ‘Recently saved’ works differently and shows your library based on adding. This can result in a different representation than with photos. Everything has to do with importing. Photos that you have received via, for example, WhatsApp or AirDrop is added to your photo library if desired. In the album ‘Recently saved’, these are placed directly at the top, while the same photos are placed in your photo library on the date of making.
The album ‘Recently saved’ therefore shows you recently added at the top of the photos and videos and at the bottom of the photos you have added before. Do you have iOS 17, iPados 17 or older? Then the recent view is just the other way around: at the top of the oldest and at the bottom of the newest.
Note deleting
It is important to remember that this is only a representation. If you knew a photo in the album ‘Recently saved’, it will also be deleted from ‘Photos’ and also from your iCloud photo library. You have to remember that this is only a representation and not about two different libraries. You can recover deleted photos up to thirty days after deleting via photos â–¸ Albums â–¸ Recently deleted.