Efficiently organize and find photos and videos
- Rob P
- Feb 26
- 6 min read
Updated: Mar 10
Introduction
This article assumes that you have used Apple Photos before and that you’re using the latest version. It will give links to Apple’s own support about some basic features. This is a guide for iPhones but also applies to iPads which have a similar layout for Apple Photos. Apple Mac’s will be covered in future. This guide focuses on practical tips for everyday use that you won’t generally find in Apple Support. It is always kept up to date.
Which Collections to use
Apple uses a variety of “Collections” to help you organise your photos. There are a lot of them. They can be a bit confusing and so here is a summary. On your iPhone these are shown in this order by default. The good news is that you can choose to show only the ones you want.
Recent Days - Photos / videos by day, as the title suggests. Created automatically
Albums - Created manually by you
People & Pets - Created automatically using face recognition but you need to name people and make corrections
Pinned Collections - Your chosen collections from the others in this list.
Shared Albums - Created Manually by you or someone else to share photos/videos. Unlike the other collections, shared albums use copies and not originals.
Memories - Groups of photos / videos created automatically in themes and also turned into a short video
Trips - Groups of photos / videos created automatically based on assumed trips with location and time as the title
Featured Photos - Automatically generate list of photos such as “On this day 10 years ago”
Media Types - Automatically generate list based on format or how you took the photo (e.g. selfies, panorama)
Utilities - Your key albums like; Favourites, Hidden, Recently Deleted Photos and more. More on these below.
Wallpaper Suggestions - Automatically selected photos.
In your photos app if you scroll down through all these sections you eventually find at the bottom the button “Customise and Reorder”.
Here is how I suggest you simplify things…
Step 1 - Next to “Pinned Collections” click ‘Modify’ and choose the following and move them into this order;
People & Pets
Map
Trips
Albums
Favourites
Hidden
Recently Deleted
Utilities
Step 2 - Select “Customise and Reorder” (at the bottom) and unselect everything except “Pinned Collections”.
Now check out the result. Much simpler.
Why like this?
The first 3 are for finding photos. See ‘Finding photos’ below.
In Albums, you can find both your own albums and shared ones. More on when to use Albums below.
Favourites is a useful ‘temporary’ album and has a few unique properties. More below.
Hidden is a useful album for hiding your ‘admin’ photos. More below.
Recently Deleted is needed for those pictures you accidentally delete.
Why not Memories or Featured photos? Because these are best displayed via a Widget on your home screen. See “Ways to display your best photos”
Why not Recent days? Because you can just scroll down to see your recent days and you can pinch to zoom in or out to see the month or year
If this set-up is not for you, you can easily modify it as you did above.
When to use People and Pets
Everyone should use this feature. Who doesn’t want to see photos of their favourite people and pets? Here is Apple’s guide on how to use it.
I recommend putting the effort in to name people and select your ‘favourite’ people. Not only will it help you find photos more easily, it also allows you to set up a great ‘Photo Shuffle’ Lock Screen that will make you smile every day. More on that in “Ways to display your best photos”.
When to use Albums
(We cover Shared Albums under ‘Sharing Photos’ and ‘Saving money / iCloud Storage’.) I used to create Albums for special events or trips. However, now Apple does this very well for you, when do you actually need an Album?
Displaying photos. This is covered in “Ways to display your best photos” but for example if you want to show just your most artistic photos on your TV screen or home-screen widget then put them all together in an album. Remember photos in albums are not copies unlike in shared albums. You can always find an album photo in your main library by using the pop up menu and selecting “Show in All Photos”
Uploading photos. If you want to upload a set of photos online to make a photobook for example, it is often easier if you’ve put them all in an Album (or a Shared Album) beforehand.
When to use Favourites
Favourites are quick to make and remove. In any photo, just click the heart icon and it shows in your Favourites album. If you use the ‘Shared Library’ feature, favourites can shared unlike Albums which are linked to an individual.
I like to use Favourites as a ‘temporary’ album to help me find photos that I know I’m going to need in the near future - to print out for example.
When to use the Hidden album
The Hidden album is an underused feature. You can hide any photo by opening it, tapping the 3 dots in the top-right and tapping ‘Hide’. You can also select multiple photos and then hide them.
I think it’s most useful to hide all those ‘Admin’ photos you take like something you see in a shop, or photos of an item you’re planning to sell online. They’re basically photos that you don’t really want others to see when you’re scrolling through your library showing off your holiday pictures or pictures of the family. Hiding these photos makes your best photos easier to find. Alternatively you can put these Admin photos into a Shared Album and delete them from your library but more on this in “Saving money / iCloud storage”.
Which default settings to change
This is a controversial topic and generally I think the default settings have been carefully chosen for good reason. However there are a couple of things you might want to change.
To get to some settings, you can just tap your account (photo or initials) in the top-right corner of your photos app. However, in the Settings app > Photos there are more options. Here’s the one’s I’d change.
iCloud Photos. I would switch this one on. It’s most useful if you have more than one Apple device. There are other ways to back up your photos as discussed in “Saving money / iCloud storage”, but it is an excellent tool and gives you the change to use a ‘Shared Library’ (which is different from Shared Albums). More on this below.
Auto-Play Motion. I find moving images a distraction, like video adverts on webpage, auto playing your live photos and videos distracts you when searching and so I switch it off.
Use Face ID / Use Touch ID. If you are worried about people getting hold of your device and seeing photos that you don’t want them to see then leave this on. Otherwise switch it off and save yourself a step when opening your Hidden album.
Finding photos
Most people simply scroll through their library, zooming in and out, to find photos. This works most of the time but these methods may speed things up;
The Search tool (magnifying glass icon at the top) is very powerful. Here is how to use it;
The People & Pets collection: Once you’ve named your favourite people, this collection makes it easy to find any photos someone was in. It also allows you to find photos with specific people in them. Just set up a group of those people as shown here.
The Maps collection. If you’re looking for a photo taken somewhere you don’t often go to then scrolling around a map is very quick way of finding a photo.
The Trips collection. This collection doesn’t always work perfectly, sometime splitting a trip in two if you visited two places on a trip. You also might not recognise the location it comes up with. However, it’s another good way of narrowing down your search.
In summary, I’d recommend;
customising you photos app considerably,
naming people in the People and Pets collections,
only use albums when displaying / uploading a set of photos
putting admin-type photos in your Hidden album,
changing a few of the default settings
