Organize and find your photos on your iPhone, iPad, or iPod touch

The Photos app makes it easy to keep your photos and videos organized and accessible. It can even give you a curated view of your photos, and intelligent Search features can help you quickly find exactly what you're looking for.

Photos is organized into Library, For You, Albums, and Search. When you turn on iCloud Photos, your collection is kept up to date across your devices. And using advanced search features, you can easily find photos of a person, place, object, or event.

Library

Enjoy a curated view of your moments in the Library tab, then browse by years, months, days, or all photos. You'll also see Live Photos and videos come to life as you scroll and browse.

iPhone showing the Library tab

  • Years: View your entire library of photos and videos that you've taken each year. Then swipe to scan the highlights.
  • Months: See groups of photos and videos taken during each month by memories and locations. Tap the More buttonMore button to share or play a movie created from your moments.
  • Days: Browse photos of the day and watch some of your videos automatically play as you scroll. Tap a photo and swipe up to see its location on a map and the people in it.
  • All Photos: See your complete photo library including screenshots and duplicate photos in the order they were taken.

With iOS 14 and later, you can filter what gets displayed, so it's easier to browse through your library. For example, you can choose to show only photos or only videos. To filter what you see:

  1. Tap the Library tab, then tap the More buttonMore button in the upper-right corner.
  2. Tap Filters, then choose an option.
  3. Tap Done.

To undo the filter, tap the Filters buttonFilters button near the top of your screen, then choose an option, and tap Done.

Live Photos and videos won't autoplay in Photos when Low Power Mode is enabled.

For You

In the For You tab, Photos searches for your photos and videos to find moments that stand out, then presents them in collections called Memories. You can also see Shared Album activity, get ideas for adding effects to select photos, and find Sharing Suggestions, which are collections of photos that you can share.

iPhone showing the For You section

Albums

In the Albums tab, find the albums that you've created, shared albums that you've created or joined, and collections of different types of photos and videos, like Selfies, Portrait, and Slo-mo. You can also look at your photos arranged on a world map in the Places album, or browse your photos based on who's in them in the People album.

The Recents album shows your entire collection in the order that you added them to your library. When you use iCloud Photos, the changes that you make to your albums on one device appear on your other devices too.

iPhone showing the albums tab

Create a new album

  1. Open Photos.
  2. Go to Albums and tap the Add buttonAdd button.
  3. Tap New Album. Type an album name, tap Save, then choose the photos and videos that you want to add.
  4. Tap Done.

Add to an existing album

  1. Open Photos.
  2. Tap Select, then tap the photos and videos that you want to add.
  3. Tap the Share buttonShare button, then tap Add to Album and choose an album.

Manage your albums

To change the name of an album:

  1. Go to the album and tap the More buttonMore button.
  2. Tap Rename Album.
  3. Change the name, then tap Save.

To rearrange your albums:

  1. Go to Albums, tap See All, then tap Edit.
  2. Touch and hold an album and drag it anywhere you want.
  3. Tap Done.

With iOS 14 and later, you can also sort the photos within your albums. Here's how:

  1. Go to an album, then tap the More button More button.
  2. Tap Sort, then choose a sorting option, like Custom Order, Oldest to Newest, or Newest to Oldest.

Share an album

You can share photos, videos, and albums with select people, then allow them to add their own photos, videos, and comments. In the Albums tab, you can see the Shared Albums that you've created and joined. Learn more about sharing albums in the Photos app.

Search your photos

Photos makes it easy to find photos of a specific person, place, thing, or event. Tap the Search tab, then type what you're looking for in the search bar.

iPhone showing the Search section

  • Moments:Search for an event, like a concert you attended or a trip you took. Photos uses the time and location of your photos along with online event listings to find matching photos.
  • People: Find photos in your library of a specific person or a group of people. Just keep names and faces organized in your People album.
  • Places: See your photos and videos on a map in the Places section. Or type a location name in the Search bar to see photos and videos from that place.
  • Categories: Photos recognizes scenes, objects, and types of locations. Search for a term like "lake" and select a result to see photos that match.

The Search tab also suggests moments, people, places, categories, and groups for you to search. Tap a suggested search, such as One Year Ago or Animals, to explore your photos.

When you search your photos, the face recognition, and scene and object detection are done completely on your device. Learn more about photos and your privacy.

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