Albums missing or moving in iOS 18 photos app

Thanks for the reminder of the proper feedback link. I just voiced my issue about missing albums there. Same problem for both iPhone and iPad.

Totally agree with you. It’s the worst update ever regarding photo transfer.

eh... more to be doing with my life than fixing Apple problems.

TTPHX wrote:

Bring back photo albums. Do u realize how long it takes to arrange these pics? Find them again without albums? This is nuts…

How can they bring back what they didn't remove?

IOS 18.1.1 is terrible! I can’t edit photos in photo albums. Besides, my file in Message App was missing. How can it be restored?

The Utiful Photo Organizer app is a quite good alternative because it a) is very easy to use, b) allows you to move photos out of the camera roll to separate folders, so that the photos disappear from the camera roll (yay!), and c) lets you sync your photo folders between your iOS devices.

I sync with iCloud and mine didn't disapear again. After you sync with your PC or Mac but before you sync with iCloud again you have to tell it to give priority to the phone over iCloud, it's a checkbox somewhere. Sorry I don't remember where but it's there... Another way is to delete your photos from iCloud (make sure they was backed up to the phone and synced with computer or mac first) and then when you do the setup and sync with iCloud it will put all your stuff on iCloud back in the order you had them on your PC or Mac same as the phone did.

You mean when you sync with iCloud?

They should go back after you have sync'ed the phone with iCloud again after you've done the iTunes part. Mine did and are even in the same albums as on the phone itself now. If you log into iCloud I think there is (at least used to be, haven't looked lately) also a place in albums where you can click to choose to update iTunes with data from the phone during next sync. But I admit it's been awhile since I used that so don't know if they changed that option.

I am trying your solution for the 2nd time. I guess part of the confusion is that you keep saying iTunes, and iTunes doesn't exist standalone anymore, it's the Music app now that includes iTunes within. Step 11 is confusing because on the left it shows your iPhone and on the top right you can choose Photos. I did not see a prioritize phone option. Let's see if the 2nd time is the charm. Once all of my 18,000+ photos get re-installed into my phone I will turn on sync to iCloud again and see if they disappear like they did the second time. I'll keep you updated.

Odd, are you on a Mac? Because iTunes is still a stand alone program for the PC. It's both in the Microsoft store (which I don't like) or you can search Apples website for "iTunes Download" and find the classic stand alone installer for 64 bit Windows which is what I used the last time I installed it after installing a new m.2 drive just a few weeks ago.

That's really odd, it worked so easy for me. The photos from my phone take priority over whats on iCloud.

What about this, can you (and sorry, haven't used the desktop thing for iCloud in awhile) use the desktop iCloud program and sync to iCloud direct from your PC?

OK, A quick web-search turned up this (and that's the checkbox/switch) I was reffering to earlier but this details the steps....

To force photos TO iCloud FROM your iPhone, You'll need to:

Open the “Settings” app on your phone.

Tap your name at the top of the settings page, and select iCloud.

On the iCloud page, select “Photos” at the top of the list.

Toggle the “iCloud Photo Library” switch to the on position.

Once this is active, your photos will begin to upload to iCloud.

You must also make sure your iPhone is connected to Wi-Fi and to Power.

On mine it was turned on so I turned it OFF before I sync'ed with iTunes after making the changes to the photo settings that I mentioned which got my photos on the phone, and then I turned this back on after everything was on the phone and it did not erase them from my phone, it just started sending them to the iCloud in the new folders (which was actually my old folders but now was on my phone).

Same there.I regret updating it to IOS 18 so much it was all fine with 17.I lost whole march,April,may and some photos from June and July and I'm freaking out like those photos were very important.I thought IOs 18.1. would fix this but NO IT DIDNT,if they dont fix this I might just buy myself and good samsung and sleep like a baby

Everyone is but I posed the fix earlier in this thread.

I’m on a Mac, not a PC. Stopped using PCs in 2008.