Is there a way to revert photos app after IOS 18

How do we remove items from the sidebar? Like Trips or Pets.

Have to tried to customize the layout of Photos according to your needs?

See this page in the user guide: Customize the Photos app on iPhone – Apple Support (UK)

Particularly, you can now hide most of the collections that are wasting space on the display.

1. Scroll to the bottom of the app, then tap Customize & Reorder.
2. Deselect the collections you want to hide.

And you can pi the collections you really need to use for easy access:

1. Scroll down, then tap Pinned Collections.
2. Tap Modify, then do any of the following:

• • Remove a pinned collection: Tap , then tap Delete.
  • Pin a collection: Tap the suggested collection you want to add, or tap Any Collection or Album to see more options.
  • Reorder pinned collections: Drag the collections into a new order.

After I removed most of the collections, Photos is usable again for me. I still don't like the iOS 18 version, but I can live with it.

I take 2 kinds of photos.

Proper photos which I keep in folders on my Mac. I manage them with an image management app - modify them, add categories, notes, etc, and then synch them to my iPhone and iPad with Finder via USB. 99% of those pics are taken with a proper camera, not a phone. If I do take proper pics with my phone I download them to a folder on mac, import them to the IM app and then delete them from the phone and synch them back to my phone using Finder via USB. I hardly use my phone as a camera. I probably take about 2 pics a month at most with my phone unless I find myself without my camera and something good happens.

Pics I take with my phone are disposable snapshots for future reference. E.g. if I drink a wine I like I'll take a pic of the label so the next time I'm shopping for wine I can see if I can find it. Ditto, say, a nice cheese at a friend's house. If take my lawnmower to bits I might take pics with my phone so that when the spares arrive I can put it back together.

With the previous Photos app these two classes of pics were completely separable on the phone. The proper pics were in the "From My Mac" section, organized by the folders as they appear on the Mac (Decade/Year/Month/Index in my hierarchy). The snaps I took with the iPhone appeared in the "Recents" section of Photos - which used to be called Camera Roll. The 'from my Mac' photos did not appear in the Recents section, even if they were taken recently. So when I'm in the supermarket and I remember the cheese all I did was tap photos, recents, and it would be there - most likely on the first screen with no swiping required because I take hardly any photos with the phone.

Today the nearest equivalent of "Recents" includes every pic I've ever taken. So if I snap the cheese and then go on a holiday and then to my niece's wedding and then go to the supermarket there can be hundreds of pics between the cheese pic and now. Previously it took seconds to find them. Now it takes a lot of swiping and messing about to get past all the holiday and wedding pics I've taken to find the one solitary picture of a cheese label - whether in library or Recent Days - because all the pics in the From My Mac section are lumped together with pics I take with my phone. And that assumes Recent Days works, which it doesn't on my phone.

If you only use your phone and Photos for managing your photography then all of this will either be a mystery or a surprise to you because you'll never have needed or known about this separation between Mac pics and iPhone pics.

My use-case is not unusual; many of the people complaining about the new photos are complaining about the removal of this facet of Photos. Other users who do use their phone as their main camera but don't use Photos on the Mac used to be able to use this separation as a means of identifying which images still needed to be imported for processing before deletion - that's become very difficult for them and if I managed a photo collection that way I'd be tearing my hair out. It's made the photos app a real pain in the neck for us and there's no good reason as far as I can tell.

ÄitiRakas wrote:

Maybe there is some other app we could use to view our photo libraries?

There are literally thousands of them. Simply look in the App Store under the category Photos & Video. Apple makes it very easy for other developers to access your photo library with your permission and they can use it any way they want in an app.

Cy. I am not clear whether you are referring to the "movie" feature or the "autoplay" feature but both can be turned off. Select "photos" instead of "movie" when viewing an album. You can turn off the "autoplay" feature in settings. Unfortunately, Apple has made a number of stupid changes to Photos that cannot be overridden but the unwanted addition of music can be turned off. Jim

There is no way to downgrade your iOS or revert the Photos app to a previous iOS.

You can let Apple know your feedback through this portal ⇢ Feedback - Photos - Apple

ARI0912- wrote:

I hate the new photos app in Update 18.1.1, too. Apple should always provide an option for a user to revert back to previous layouts of an app.

Could you imagine the size of an update that would also include everything from the previous update as well? I would expect much more complaining how Apple is taking up too much storage space on a users devices. And if Apple did not provide any changes to their apps, then there would be complaints that Apple is not being innovative. It's a no win.

You may find this post helpful with some of the things you can now do with the Photos app.

Please explain the changes in Photo App w… - Apple Community

That was also an article posted about some of the changes users did not like and how they can make it more like it was previously.

https://www.techradar.com/phones/iphone/hate-ios-18s-new-photos-app-try-these-fixes-to-make-it-more-like-the-old-version

In addition to the User Guide:

View photos and videos on iPhone - Apple Support

Don’t upgrade if you can avoid. If you use the view photos by location, you will be sad to find it no longer works

I don't use iCloud for photos. I don't use Photos on Mac. I use Photos on iPhone only as a viewer. I don't use albums or any of its classification features or faces or places or objects. None of my photos has GPS either on my camera or on the iPhone - I decide where they were taken, not the device. I don't want anyone or anything messing with my photos other than me. If I could stop iPhone scanning my photos for faces, objects and places then I would. My photos are far too important to me to have someone else deciding what's in them. The best thing about the removal of the only useful feature (for me) from Photos might be that I get off my backside and find a decent app for managing them.

Zurarczurx,

You may want to start a new thread here that is more to your issue then staying on this one. You are a rare bred and the others here are the usual suspects using Photos on all their devices and using iCloud to sync them.

Best to you! I wish I could be of more assistance! Also, if there is an Apple Store near you, you may want to discuss this with someone there. A genius?

Another thought... You may want to try a different camera app. Some of the other camera apps keep their photos separate from the Photos app. That way you avoid the Photos app scanning your images and you should be able to download those photos without going through the Photos app. I think ProCam and Camera+ are two that allow you to store the images in their app. I have used and occasionally use these apps for more control.

NandoGolfMan wrote:

I do not like the new IOS18 photo option and want to revert to the old one. It is so unorganized and confusing and frustrating to use. Please help me get back to the old way.

From Mac Jim ID's post in this thread from December 3rd,

https://www.techradar.com/phones/iphone/hate-ios-18s-new-photos-app-try-these-fixes-to-make-it-more-like-the-old-version

MSJ-1993 wrote:

Do not upgrade to new iOS 18 it's terrible...photos are disorganized, haphazard and I despise it. I want to revert to previous version!!! Regret upgrading.

Since reverting is not possible, I would have to suggest you look in the App Store for a Photos app you like better. There are many to choose from and all have complete access to your Photo Library just like the Apple Photos app.

Zuraczurx:

I use Photos in the same manner as you. 99% of my photos are taken with a DLSR and are manually transferred from the Photos library on my Mac to the Photos App on my iPhone in the form of subject specific albums. (I do not use iCloud).

There has to be a way to segregate snapshots taken on the iPhone from the thousands of photos contained in the transferred albums.

Have you found anyway to restore the equivalent of Camera Roll and separate the images? If this cannot be done then the Photos App has been rendered completely useless.

I have used the customization window to deselect every feature except "From My Mac" However, I cannot figure out how to eliminate the mosaic located immediately above my albums that mixes the thousands of photos in my albums with the snapshots taken on my iPhone.

My technique to make it look like the original app is to scroll to the bottom of photos and click “Customize & Reorder” and then un-check everything except “Media Types”, and “Utilities”. I saw the trick on YouTube.

V8-Runner wrote:

I’ve not yet updated, I’m still on a much later version, 16 I think, my daughter has updated and is screaming on how it’s all changed, especially her photos, I don’t know why you are not just given the option to choose what it is you will allow to be changed, or atleast changed back if you don’t like it, I’m not updating, one or two apps are no longer working, but I don’t care, so I’ve deleted them, or thrown them into another spare folder, I avoid apple updates as much as I can, but I’m swaying towards android.

It is your choice what you do. Nobody here cares what platform you use and as always it is strongly recommended to get the one that best meets your needs. I suggest you spend some time over n the Android Support site, as it is not unusual to regularly see a post where a disgruntled user does not like something and says they are switching to the iPhone. For some reason that seams like the go to response. In any case they also have yearly updates and here are what those users say about it.

Android Support example 1

Android Support example 2

Android Support example 3