How to use the new Photos app in iOS 18

The new Photos app in iOS 18 is the biggest change ever to how you browse your pictures, videos and memories on your iPhone. Gone are the separate tabs across the bottom. Now the app delivers a single, scrollable view. Scroll up to see your library; scroll down to sort through albums, people and memories.

It takes some getting used to — you need to learn where to find your recently saved images, deleted photos and you album of hidden photos. The new Photos app went through a lot of changes over the summer, but is now baked in place for iOS 18.

Here’s how it works.

How to use the new Photos app in iOS 18

You’ll see the new design as soon as you update your iPhone to iOS 18. The update is currently in public beta, and will be released to everyone later this month.

Table of contents: How to use the new Photos app in iOS 18

1. Your photo library
2. Your collections
3. Recently saved images
4. Search
5. Find Deleted and Hidden images
6. Edit and rearrange your collections
7. Check iCloud sync and see shared photos
8. More iOS 18 features

Your photo library

When you first open the Photos app in iOS 18, you should notice big changes immediately. The Library on the top half of the screen shows all your pictures in chronological order. Scroll up to browse your pictures and videos.

The Select button in the top toolbar lets you select a batch of images to share, organize, delete or edit. You can tap to select/deselect images, or swipe your finger across the screen to select a bunch of them at once.

The Sort & Filter button at the left edge of the bottom toolbar lets you choose how images are listed:

• Sort by Recently Added lists them by when the images were added to your photo library. So if your friend sends you a picture from a vacation two months ago, it’ll appear as the most recent item in your library right after you save it.
• Sort by Date Captured lists them by when the images were taken. So in the same scenario, the picture would appear among other pictures taken two months ago, chronologically.
• Filter lets you quickly see your favorites, edited images, photos, videos and screenshots.
• View Options lets you display the images bigger, smaller or in their original aspect ratio. You also can filter out screenshots and images that were sent to you over Messages that you haven’t added to your personal library.

The Date Range picker lets you quickly scroll back by month or year. Tap the × in the bottom right corner to jump back down to the bottom.

Your collections in the Photos app in iOS 18

The Collections view further down the screen in iOS 18’s new Photos app puts all your recently saved images, memories, albums and other stuff in a single scrollable list:

• Recent Days shows just the pictures and videos you’ve taken in the last few weeks. Tap to see all your photos from that day.
• Recently Saved will appear inside the Recent Days section, to the left to show you images you saved from the web, Snapchat, Messages and more.
• Albums shows your custom-created albums. Scroll horizontally to browse or tap “Albums” on top to see the list full-screen.
• People & Pets uses facial recognition to organize who’s who in your photo library. You can assign these people names that match up with your contacts list and see all their pictures here.
• Pinned Collections is a customizable list of smart albums you can create. For example, you can make Recently Saved or Map more prominent and then moved Pinned Collections to the top of the list.
• Memories, Trips and Featured Photos are three collections that intelligently browse through your photos and surface old memories, vacations and classic photos in your library.
• Media Types is where you can sort by media type: videos, selfies, Live Photos, Portrait shots, panoramas, time-lapse and slo-mo, bursts, screenshots, screen recordings, spatial images, GIFs and more.
• Utilities is where you can find hidden photos, recently deleted and duplicate photos. You also can find smart categories for pictures of receipts, handwriting, drawings, QR codes, recently viewed and edited, documents and more.
• Wallpaper Suggestions shows you images that would look good on your iPhone’s Lock Screen.

Tap Customize & Reorder at the bottom to move sections that are more important to you higher up in the list or turn off features you don’t use.

Recently saved images

If you saved a picture from the web, Messages or AirDrop, you used to be able to find it in Albums > Recents. Now, here’s where you can look to find your recently saved images in the redesigned Photos app in iOS 18:

• Images you’ve just saved will appear in the Recent Days section on the left of the app. They’ll stay there until the end of the day.
• Scroll down to the Pinned Collections section to find Recently Saved. Tap on this to see your recently saved images. For quicker access, you can scroll down to the bottom of the screen, tap Customize & Reorder, then move Pinned Collections higher up on the list.
• If you always want immediate access to your recent images, scroll up to the top to see your library. Tap the Sort & Filter button at the bottom left, then tap Sort by Recently Added. Your library will always show images based on when you saved them rather than their chronological date.

Search

The Search button at the top of the screen lets you search for people, media type, location and more. You’ll see recently searched images up top and suggestions for what you can search for above the text box.

You can search using the name of the person in the image, where it was taken, the date it was taken, text inside the image, what the picture is of, whether it’s a photo, video or selfie, and more. As you type, tap on the autocomplete suggestions above to add a filter. You can add as many filters as you need to find what you’re looking for and narrow the results. Tap Done or tap the blank area to the right to close the search box.

Find Deleted and Hidden images in iOS 18’s new Photos app

Your deleted, hidden and duplicate images are a bit harder to find in iOS 18’s new Photos app. Scroll down to find the Utilities section to see these categories. The list of utilities scrolls horizontally. Swipe to see more intelligent smart albums for receipts, handwriting, illustrations, QR codes, recently saved, recently viewed, recently edited, recently shared, documents, imports and a map.

Edit and rearrange your collections

To remove some sections of iOS 18’s new Photos app that you don’t use, or reorder the sections for faster access, tap Customize & Reorder at the very bottom of the scrollable list. Uncheck an item in the list to hide it; drag the reorder button on the right to rearrange the categories. Tap Reset in the upper left if you want to set it back to the default setting; tap the × in the upper right when you finish.

Manually sync to iCloud and see shared photos

In the new Photos app in iOS 18, your Profile button in the upper right lets you see the sync status of your image library. You’ll see a yellow dot on this icon if there’s media that hasn’t been uploaded to iCloud. A blue progress circle appears around the icon if it’s currently syncing.

In this screen, you can force your Photos library to sync. You may need to do this if you want to see today’s pictures on your Mac or Apple TV. If you see a line of text that says “Syncing with iCloud Paused,” tap Sync Now. Your iPhone usually waits until it’s charging and connected to Wi-Fi to sync your photo library.

Here, you also can see pictures that other people shared with you and iCloud links. And you can change some settings.

More iOS 18 features

Once you familiarize yourself with all the changes in the Photos app, check out some of the other great new features in iOS 18: