Manage photos in Photos app on iPhone or iPad

All photos taken with an iPhone or iPad are stored in the Photos app. In this article, we’ll explain how to manage and organize these photos on an iPhone with iOS 13 or later and an iPad with iPadOS 13 or later.

The Photos app on the iPhone has four tabs. They are in a bar at the bottom of the screen. The first tab is “Library” (from iOS/iPadOS 14) or “Photos” (iOS/iPadOS 13). It contains all photos taken with the iPhone or iPad. You can relive special moments via the second tab, ‘For you’. In the third tab, ‘Albums’, photos are organized into folders. Finally, the ‘Search’ tab offers a search function to quickly find the right photo.

On the iPad, you can find these parts by illustrating the left sidebar. To do this, swipe from the edge of the screen from left to right.

The Library/Photos tab provides an overview of all photos on the device. You will see thumbnails of the photos. At the bottom you can select Years, Months, Days and All photos. This will display photos from a specific period. For example, Years contains blocks containing the year and a photo from that year. Tap to view the photos from that year. Tap on a photo to see the large version. Choose the option ‘All photos’ to return to an overview of all photos on the device.

The Photos app’s search function opens from the “Search” tab. This is how the search function works:

• In the Photos app, tap the tab Search.
• Tap in the search bar that says Photos, People, Places….
• Type the search term, for example a month or object.
• On the keyboard, tap Search.
• The results appear on the screen. First of all, show photos that fall under the search term. Below that, Apple also provides other matching suggestions, such as moments, albums, and places.

Not all saved photos are worth keeping. Delete photos you no longer want to keep.

• Tap the tab photos / Library and make sure you’re in ‘All Photos’ view.
• At the top right of the image, tap Select.
• Tap the photos you want to delete. Swipe up or down to view more photos.
• Tap the trash can icon at the bottom right .
• Tap on Delete X photos. Here, the ‘X’ represents the number of photos you are deleting.

Deleted photos will remain in the Recently Deleted album on the Albums tab for 30 days.

An album can be created in the ‘Albums’ tab. This is useful, for example, to put the photos of a holiday or family day together. When creating your own album, you immediately add the first photos.

• In the Photos app, tap the tab Albums. On the iPad, choose All albums.
• Tap the plus sign at the top left of the screen.
  
• Tap on New album.
• Type the name for the new album.
• Tap on Keep.
• Now add the first photos. To do this, tap the photos you want in the album.
• The photos you selected for the album have a check mark. At the top right, tap Ready. The album is now in the ‘Albums’ tab.

Add more photos to the album? That can be done like this:

• In the Photos app, tap the tab Library/Photos.
• Tap on To dawn or All pictures.
• At the top right, tap Select.
• Tap the photos you want to add to an album.
• Tap the square with arrow icon at the bottom left .
• A window opens. Tap here put in album.
• Tap the desired album and the photos are added to it.

It is possible to delete created albums again. The photos will remain on the iPhone/iPad, but how you arranged them in an album will be lost. Albums that other apps have created for you can also be deleted, but the default albums such as ‘Recent’ and ‘Favorites’ cannot.

• In the Photos app, tap the tab Albums. On the iPad, choose All albums.
• On the iPhone, next to the group name in which the album falls, for example ‘My albums’, tap Show all.
• Tap on Change.
• A red circle with a white stripe appears in the top left corner of the albums that you can delete. Tap on the album you want to delete.
• Tap to check Delete (album).
• Tap in the top right corner of the screen Ready.