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Move photos from the library into albums so they are out the library and organised.

I have thousands of photos and I want to organise them into albums. Ideally I’d want the photo to move to the album so it comes out my library. I can then see which photos have been organised and avoid duplications. My plan is then to share these albums with my children when they have iPhones. But when you move a photo into an album it is still in the library so I don’t know which photos I’ve organised and I’m essentially duplicating everything

is there a way around this?


iPhone 13, iOS 16

Posted on Aug 6, 2023 7:34 AM

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2 replies

Aug 6, 2023 10:04 AM in response to VCTK2022

The Library View is designed to show all of the pictures in the entire Library. You can't remove a picture from the Library View without deleting it entirely.


Pictures aren't exactly "in" an album. When you put a picture into an album, its name is added to a list of pictures to display when the album is clicked. An Album is a list of pictures. When you drag a thumbnail from one Album to another, you're adding that picture's name to the new album's list-- it's name isn't removed from the original list.


This is cool because two albums can both have the same picture name in their lists, and that picture will show up when you click either album. Having a picture in several albums doesn't use any more space. And when you remove a picture from an album, its name remains in the lists of other albums, and the file still remains in your Library. "Library" is a preset view that lists all the pictures in the Library.


If you want to see pictures that haven't yet been listed in an album, you can use a "Smart Album." In the Menu, you choose File>New Smart Album. You can title the new album, and then you set it to Album>is not>Any, like I did here:

(Apparently, I have thousands of pictures that aren't in any albums. Drat-- I should get on that.)


Now you can drag a picture from this Smart Album, and it will disappear, leaving only the pictures that haven't been put in an album, yet.


Smart albums are really powerful ways to help organize your Library.

Aug 6, 2023 10:04 AM in response to VCTK2022

Are you familiar with iTunes? If so then albums in Photos are like playlists in iTunes. You can have a photo in many albums but only one original in the library just like you can have tracks in many playlists and it's in the iTune library only once.


Different views in a Photos library can be sorted differently. This screenshot shows the options:



Move photos from the library into albums so they are out the library and organised.

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