Hiding photos in Photos app but still visible in documents on iPad and iPhone

When Iterated this, the syncing of the Hidden album with iCloud Photos has been so slow, that the photos had not been moved to hidden on my other devices and and so still have been visible in Documents on my Mac and my iPad after a quarter of an hour. SO we have to be patient.

@ Dovercoaster, better not delete any photos from Documents. The Documents collection is just a kind of smart album, populated automatically by Photos, based on all photos in your library, collecting all photos that are looking like documents. To delete photos from documents, they have to be deleted from the library or edited in a way, that they do no longer appear to be documents. Or hide the photos on all devices individually, if the syncing is too slow.

I don't see that. I went to Utilities>Documents on my phone, selected a picture, and chose More (•••)>Hide. It disappeared in Documents, but I could see it in Hidden. I went to my Mac and to my iPad, and it also wasn't visible in Documents on either of those devices. Unhiding that it made it visible in Documents on all the devices.

What did you do that was different? I, too, and using iOS 18

léonie wrote: …the syncing of the Hidden album with iCloud Photos has been so slow,

The synchronization with iPhone, iPad, and Mac happened within a minute or so for me, as quickly as I could pick them up to check. But slow happens, and that could well be what Dovercoaster is seeing.

@ Dovercoaster, better not delete any photos from Documents.

I should have said that!

when I hid the photos on my iPhone with iOS 26, I hid them right from the "Documents" location. But even after half an hour the hidden status had not synced to my Mac and iPad with matching system versions. These documents screenshots or photos taken with the iPhone. for example boarding passes. I have unhidden the photos again, I do not want to lose them.

When I hide other photos, not documents, the hidden status is syncing. This is very strange, Richard.

Weird

I'm popping things between Documents and Hidden, and it's syncing with my iPad within a minute or two. I'm at a cafe with shaky wifi. I'm not in Library or any regular album-- just Documents and Hidden on the Phone. iOS18 on both.

These are pictures of papers and a newspaper clipping, wrinkled. They aren't cropped nicely-- not like I would get on a flatbed scanner.