iOS 18.4 is currently being tested in beta and includes 4 new functions for the Photos app – you can expect this.
New functions for the app photos in iOS 18.4
iOS 18.4 brings a lot of new functions and changes, including in the photos app. These ensure more flexibility and options. These are the four most important improvements of photos in iOS 18.4.
1. New filter options
If you look at a collection of photos in the photos app, you will see an icon with two vertical arrows. When you tap this, you see different sorting, filter and display options. Two new options have been added in iOS 18.4. You can then filter on:
- ‘Shared with you’ (shared with you)
- ‘Not in an album’ (not in an album)
With these filters it is easy in iOS 18.4 to find photos and videos that meet a specific description. In this case you can filter to see only items that others have shared with you, or that have not yet been sorted in an album.
If you tap the ‘Albums’ button and then at the top right of the three dots, you will also see new filter options. This allows you to display ‘Only albums’ (Only Show albums) or ‘Only folders’ (Only Show Folders).

2. New option to sort albums
In iOS 18.4 the app photos has a new way to sort albums. In addition to the existing options ‘Sort by name’ (Sort by Name) and ‘Sorting in adapted order’ (Sort by Custom Order), there is now also the option ‘Sorting changed by date’ (Sort by Date Modified). With this, your albums and folders are ranked again and the most recently changed at the top.
Furthermore, ‘grid’ (grid) and ‘list’ (list) are renamed ‘list display’ (list view) and ‘important photo’ (key photo). This change makes no further functional difference. It is therefore not clear why Apple has changed this.
3. Options for more privacy
There are a few albums that are standard in the photos app while you may not want that for privacy reasons. It concerns the albums ‘Recently viewed’ (recently viewed) and ‘recently shared’ (recent shared). These albums collect all the photos and videos that you last looked at or that you last shared with someone else.
In iOS 18.4 you can disable these folders in the app photos with a new switch. You can find them in Settings> Apps> Photos. If you wish, you can also eliminate the ‘Hidden Album’ (Hidden album) if desired.

4. Remove or repair many photos at the same time
If you ever want to remove all your deleted photos and videos quickly and easily, you will get that option in iOS 18.4. Open the album ‘Recently deleted’ (recently deleted) and you will find a new trash button with which you can remove all items permanently. On the other hand, you can also use the new button ‘Restore everything’ (recover all) if you want to quickly restore all deleted items in your photos library.
iOS 18.4 will come next month
The release of iOS 18.4 will most likely take place in April. If we look at the past and based on that to the future, we expect the release on Monday April 7 or Tuesday April 8. Whether that is indeed correct, of course remains to be seen. We will keep you up iPhoned In any case, informed!