User profile for user: jamessawle
jamessawle Author
User level: Level 1
19 points

Both Apple Photos and Photomator just does not work as it should!

For Years now I have had a problem with Apple Photos which seems to now be apparent in Photomator as well.


Over the years, at least since 2004 I have collected 1000's of Photos, an in more recent years as the phones camera has got a lot better I have increased the amount of photos that I take when I am working on projects for myself of my website. One of the main things that I used to enjoy was the cataloguing of photos using Albums, and this is where I am getting very fustrated that a problem that I have seen others complain about STILL has not been fixed.


Apple Photos:


  1. Albums that were created years ago still do not appear on other devices such as my MacBook Pro M3 and yet newer Albums have synced across to my Mac, and it is not just a single Al;bums, I am missing over 60 in total.
  2. Even though I haver asked that the Albums are sortewd in Alphabetical Order there are always about 5 - 10 Albums that I have recently created about a week ago still are not in Alphabetical order and appear at the top of the list when you look at the Apple Photos on the iPhone or the Mac?


Photomator:


The software looked to be a real upgrade to Apple Photos, but it really lacks useability. I take a lot of photos with the iPhone as a diary of event especially when I am working on shoots for the National Geographic which I have been lucky to do, and the phone has becaome a real godsend when trying to remember names of places or even on items that i have been asked to record. But is is very annoying and I really wish that it wasn't.


  1. When looking through photos in the library view, it is fairly logial to create an new album when you select a number of photos, but if at a later time you come across more photos that need to be in that album, you cannot just select them and say 'Add to Album', that feature does not exist, instead you have to go to the Albums view, then select the album, and then add the photos, this is a really stupid way of doing this as I might miss a few photos and then I need to go back to the library view to carry on trying to sort out the photos, then go back to the album view and add the photos and then go back to the library view, and this just seems very long winded and very annoying and un-user friendly.
  2. Again Albums sorted out in Photomator do not sort in Alphabetical order on other devices and also not on the iPhone.
  3. Again missing Albums, I can view them in Photomator on the iPhone, but not on my Mac, and this is not just new albums, it is some that I created 6 months ago and have sync to my mac on a daily basis, but still they are not synced to the other devices.


Both these issues seem to be related, and Both have never been addressed, others seem to have the same problems and as yet I have not found an alternitive solution for something that is very important, the ability to look for a ablums and then see the photos taken regarding that are more important than the actual photos themselves.


It seems that Apple just does not care as this has been a problem for years now, but I have yet to find an alternative, and the only suggestion that I have been offered is ditching my iPhone and going to a Samsung, I have been shown a similar Album on a Android device and it seems they do not suffer from the same problem. I really would not like to ditch my iPhone, especially as over the years I have bought a lot of Apps, but it is getting to a point where even the transfering of photos between my iPhone and the Mac is pretty time comsuming and annoyingly a pain, when Airdrop works it is great, but often that does not work and when the photos are not synced to Apple photos on the Mac it can sometimes take a hour to transfer the photos to a PC and then back to the mac, and that is when I can locate all of the photos in the first place


Maybe you can guess but I am getting quite annoyed with something that should be a lot easier to do than it is.


James

iPhone 15 Pro Max, iOS 26

Posted on Nov 7, 2025 6:31 AM

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5 replies
User profile for user: Richard.Taylor
Richard.Taylor
User level: Level 6
16,867 points

Nov 7, 2025 7:10 AM in response to jamessawle

This is my Album list on my Mac and my iPad:

As you can see, they are identical. They always are. They are sort of alphabetical, but in reverse order. Because there's no option for that, I put them in that order on my Mac, and they are reproduced that way on the iPhone and iPad.


I'm just playing with Photometer, so I can't say much. I'm not attempting to use its organization at all.


I'm using iCloud Photos, but you don't say what you're doing. Is iCloud Photos not working for you?

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User profile for user: jamessawle
jamessawle Author
User level: Level 1
19 points

Nov 7, 2025 12:41 PM in response to Richard.Taylor

I have tried both ways and even after leaving alone and connected via USB for days at a time I still see that items do not sync. I have some albums that I created just a few weeks ago all appearing at the top of the list, this is even though I have sort by name selected, after these the rest are in alphabetical order. I have searched the web for months trying to sort this out as it is affecting my work now, things that i should be able to do in minutes are now taking an hour or longer to sort out, and sometimes because I still cannot sort out a lot of my albums properly I still find files that i should have added to albums some time ago.


I suppose a useful feature that i have just thought about is an option to hide any photos that have been aded to an album, maybe that way I could see what files I have yet to sort out.


With regards to my problem here I am always around similar minded individuals that also take photos with both cameras as well as iPhones and also they are taking the photos for the same reason, the iPhone makes it easy to take random photos that make it possible to record the spellings of place names, or just a simple task to record where I was on those days, most of the cameras that we use for the main photo work do not have a built in GPS so having an iPhone can be useful to record rough GPS coordinates.


But nearly all of the people that I work with are still trying to find a solution, the only one that keeps showing its head is to completely download all the photos on off days that we have, then delete them from the phone so no photos are left, then catalogue them on a PC or Mac using Capture One, then once sorted we then re-import what we need back to the iPhone and then select all and add to a new album, this method seems to work well but It takes up a great deal of time, and end up only havinmg a few 1000 photos on the phone at any one time and it is not really productive. the only bonus of working this way round is that the photos that were taken on the iPhone are straightened, colour corrected, cropped and processed so when re-imported they do look a lot better.


I suppose I am hoping that someone can recommend a peice of software that does work for both cataloguing and maybe a bit of editing.


Thanks anyway.


James

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User profile for user: Richard.Taylor
Richard.Taylor
User level: Level 6
16,867 points

Nov 8, 2025 6:40 AM in response to jamessawle

jamessawle wrote: …I still cannot sort out a lot of my albums properly I still find files that i should have added to albums some time ago.

As I said, I'm just beginning to mess with Photometor (which, on my Mac, keeps auto correcting to Photometer,) and I haven't tried using its albums. I'm using Photo as the main organizing system and editor, and I take advantage of Photometor's tools by using Photos' menu "Image>Edit With" which, once it's going, you can access with command-return. Save or Done in Photometor returns the edited image to Photos, and they also are put into a Photometor album in Photos, for reference, I guess.


I use Lightroom Classic for RAW processing, exporting a jpeg of the results to Photos for organizing.

most of the cameras that we use for the main photo work do not have a built in GPS so having an iPhone can be useful to record rough GPS coordinates.

My Nikon allows me to use the GPS on my phone to annotate pictures it takes. For cameras that don't do that, there are apps that will match recorded GPS data with capture times to add to picture files.

But nearly all of the people that I work with are still trying to find a solution, the only one that keeps showing its head is to completely download all the photos on off days that we have, then delete them from the phone so no photos are left, then catalogue them on a PC or Mac using Capture One, then once sorted we then re-import what we need back to the iPhone and then select all and add to a new album,

Wow, that sounds hard!

I suppose I am hoping that someone can recommend a peice of software that does work for both cataloguing and maybe a bit of editing.

I like Photos' organization. Lightroom is also a strong organizing tool as well as a superb editor, but I think Photos is faster and more convenient, even if I use other software for the the tougher editing.

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Both Apple Photos and Photomator just does not work as it should!

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