Can’t search photo albums in iOS 18

All I can say is that mine took 3 to 4 days before I could find all of my albums searching by the album name.

I mentioned indexing as it seemed like it was doing just that, sorting everything so that it could later be searched easily.

Indexing is the process by which a computer system organizes and records the locations of files and their contents to facilitate faster search and retrieval.

It took 3-4 days and then they all became searchable.

I didn’t do anything but wait.

Hope that helps.

First time leaving anything in forums. This is by far the WORST iPhone update ever! Like most the iPhone has replaced my camera and I had all my photos in albums and folders neatly labeled. Now they have disappeared, can’t delete pictures (they immediately reappear), can’t watch videos you just took, and pictures are grainy and won’t send most of the time. This needs to be fixed immediately! Go back to the previous update as far as the photos are concerned. I don’t have time to scroll thru 10,000 pictures to find the one picture I’m wanting to send.

Your answer is not relevant to the main question in this forum: "Can’t search photo albums in iOS 18"

The issue is there's NO Search Function in iOS18

Is your iPhone updated to iOS18??

If it isn't updated, DON'T!!

Below procedure worked for me so try this:

“The detection process requires iPhone to be locked and connected to power. Depending on what tasks are running in the background and the size of your photo library, the process could happen quickly or take up to a few days to complete”

I was wirelessly charging my iPhone 16 Pro for over 2 weeks and the photo search function still wasn’t working. After coming accross the above information, I used my usbc charging cable and physically charged the phone overnight twice in a row, the search function started working the next morning. So I guess the phone does require to be physically connected to power in order for the phone to learn your large photo library. Hope this helps.

It seems I have found the solution on the Nexboy forum. There's a solution on how you can fix it, and I have followed their solution.

I used to be able to say “Hey siri show me photos of Bae” and it would pull up photos of my wife. Now it pulls randoms photos from the internet. It’s the beta so maybe it isn’t finished yet.

I had this issue as well and after searching a lot i finally found the solution, click on photos , pinned collections, modify and you select album and add it to your collection.

How much is a lot ? i posted that answer about 6 comments before yours 😂

Agree this is a big problem that needs to be fixed ASAP. We have important travel tickets stored in albums and now can’t find them. Apple need to prioritise this.

the answer is in this thread , just scroll down to pinned collections , modify and you will find an option to add your albums . after that they will be there in pinned .

Gary,

I went to collections and hit modified which gives you general categories not the albums. So I am lost as to what to do next to find with ease my albums based on their name I gave them.