Most of us have faced the problem of a cluttered photo library at some point in our lives. The Photos app shows a mess of screenshots, photos of people, events, and aesthetic visuals, and you probably don't want to let go of any of it.
Luckily, folders and albums in the Photos app will allow you to organize all your pictures, so you can always find what you're looking for without needing to delete anything.
Below, we'll show you how to organize your photos on your iPhone with albums and folders.
Folder vs. Album on iPhone: What's the Difference?
The difference is quite simple. An album will allow you to quickly add photos of a person, occasion, or event to group them together. On the other hand, a folder will only allow you to add existing albums and other folders to it rather than individual pictures.
An example of how you might use this would be to group pictures of your vacations together. You can create an album of all your photos from your trip to Germany and another separate album from your vacation to Spain. You can then create a folder named "Vacations" and add these two albums to it to organize them in one place.
You can continue adding albums as you tour the world! How cool is that? You could also turn individual vacations into their own sub-folders and create further albums inside them for specific events, places, and occurrences on vacation.
How to Create an Album in Photos
You can quickly sort out photos of a person or an occasion by creating an album in your Photos app on an iPhone and iPad. Here's how to create an album:
- Open the Photos app and go to the Albums tab.
- Press the plus (+) icon in the top-left corner.
- Select New Album from the dropdown menu.
- Enter the name of the album and press Save.
- Select all the photos you want in your album and press Done. You can choose from All Photos or previously existing Albums.
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If you ever want to add more photos to your album, all you need to do is scroll down to the end of the album. Next to your latest picture, you will see a photo icon with a plus (+) sign. Tap on it to begin adding new photos.
Once you're done, tap Add in the corner, and all your photos will be added. Alternatively, you can press the icon with three horizontal dots to Add Photos, Rename Album, Delete Album, Share Photos, and more.
If you want to change the image used for a photo album, you can learn how to change an album's cover photo on an iPhone or iPad.
How to Create a Folder in Photos
Creating a folder will allow you to group multiple albums together into one place. This can be useful in many ways and allows you to de-clutter your camera roll easily.
To add an album to a folder, you will first have to create one. But if you already have too many unwanted ones, feel free to learn how to delete unnecessary photo albums on your iPhone.
Let's take a look at how you can create a folder in the Photos app:
- Open the Photos app and go to Albums.
- Press the plus (+) icon in the top-left corner.
- Tap on New Folder.
- Type in your folder name and press Save, and your folder has been created.
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How to Add an Album to a Folder
Creating a new album inside your new folder almost follows the same basic steps, but you first need to open the folder. Here's what to do:
- Open the folder you want to add a new album or folder to.
- Press Edit in the top-right corner.
- Tap on the plus (+) sign. Select New Album or New Folder according to your preference.
- Add the name, press Save, and there you have it. You can add photos to your new album precisely the same way as described above.
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How to Move an Album Into a Folder
Say you have a pre-existing album in your Photos app that you want to move to your new folder. What do you do then? While there's no straightforward option that gets the job, here's an easy and simplistic method to get the job done:
- Create a New Album in your folder as described above.
- You will now get a popup screen to select the photos you want to add to the album in your folder. Press Album from the icons at the bottom and tap on the album you want to move to your new folder.
- Select all the photos in the album and press Add.
- Press Done to finish.
- You may now want to delete the original album to avoid having a copy.
It may be a bit difficult for you to select all the photos in your album this way, even when using the iOS drag-and-drop method. There's an even easier alternative for you in that case:
- Create a New Album in your folder. Instead of using the drag-and-drop method to select all your photos, just select one, and press Add.
- Open the album you want to move to your new folder.
- Tap on Select in the top-right corner, and then press Select All in the top-left corner. This will automatically select all the photos in the album with just a tap.
- Press the Share button at the bottom right.
- Select Add to Album. Tap on your folder and then the album in the folder you want it to move into.
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Once this is done, delete the previous album to keep the Photos app clean and organized.
Give Your iPhone Photos Some Structure With Folders and Albums
Folders and albums are fantastic for creating an immaculately organized photo gallery. Albums allow you to add pictures to categorize and group them together while creating a folder will allow you to store multiple albums in one place. You can choose to keep your photos organized however you want to.