You can make a difference in the Apple Support Community!

When you sign up with your Apple Account, you can provide valuable feedback to other community members by upvoting helpful replies and User Tips.

Looks like no one’s replied in a while. To start the conversation again, simply ask a new question.

Identify smart albums

How do you tell if an album is indeed smart?


One supposedly smart album doesn't have all photos as I entered - or thought.


Is it possible to edit selection criteria in those albums?


Thank you, Tom

MacBook Pro

Posted on Feb 6, 2021 11:53 AM

Reply
Question marked as Top-ranking reply

Posted on Feb 6, 2021 12:55 PM

One supposedly smart album doesn't have all photos as I entered - or thought.

I am not sure, what you are asking about. You cannot enter photos into a smart album. Are you asking about photos, that should have appeared in a smart album and do not appear in this album, according to the constraints of the album?

Which album are you referring to? Ad which photos are missing from the smart album?


You can only control smart albums you create yourself. All predefined albums, created automatically by Photos, are following fixed rules, but you cannot modify the rules.


If a smart album, created by yourself, is not containing all items you would expect in the albums, check the properties of the missing items.


6 replies
Question marked as Top-ranking reply

Feb 6, 2021 12:55 PM in response to Tom Meade1

One supposedly smart album doesn't have all photos as I entered - or thought.

I am not sure, what you are asking about. You cannot enter photos into a smart album. Are you asking about photos, that should have appeared in a smart album and do not appear in this album, according to the constraints of the album?

Which album are you referring to? Ad which photos are missing from the smart album?


You can only control smart albums you create yourself. All predefined albums, created automatically by Photos, are following fixed rules, but you cannot modify the rules.


If a smart album, created by yourself, is not containing all items you would expect in the albums, check the properties of the missing items.


Feb 6, 2021 11:23 PM in response to Tom Meade1

Yes, that is how it is supposed to happen. You do not even need to first elect any photos to create a smart album. The photos inside a smart album are only determined by the rules.

  • Create the smart album from the File menu: File > New Smart album, then define the rules.
  • Or hover the pointer to the right of "My Albums", until the (+) button appears, click it. Then select "Smart album" from the menu.


You can think of smart albums as being computed albums, that will always update themselves automatically, based on all photos or videos in our Photos Library.

  • The standard albums are like enumerated sets of photos, created by adding photos to them. We can create them by selecting photos and dragging the photos to the sidebar to add an album with the selection, or by creating a new, empty album and dragging photos into the album.

Feb 6, 2021 1:20 PM in response to léonie

The key in your reply was "you cannot enter photos into a smart album," which I take to mean one can only select

the photos, then invoke the Create Smart Album command - then set the criteria. So I set as Created, since 1899 - and

voila - all my photos appeared - including editable titles below each one. Is that what's supposed to happen? Tom

Identify smart albums

Welcome to Apple Support Community
A forum where Apple customers help each other with their products. Get started with your Apple Account.