iOS 18.4 is available now, and among its many features are some easy-to-miss changes to Apple’s Photos app that give users more flexibility and options than before. Here are the details on iOS 18.4’s Photos enhancements.
#1: New filtering options
Whenever you’re viewing a collection of photos and/or videos, you may have noticed that the Photos app shows an icon in the lower-left corner with two vertical arrows.
Behind this arrow icon you’ll find various sort, filter, and view options.
In iOS 18.4, there are two new additions to the Filter menu. You can now filter by:
- Shared With You
- Not in an Album
Filters make it easy to find all photos or videos that fit a specific description. So in this case, you can filter to only see items that others have shared with you, or ones that aren’t yet sorted into an album.
Additionally, if you tap the Albums button then the three-dot icon in the top-right corner, you’ll see new filter options there too. These additions let you filter to only show Albums or only show Folders.
#2: New album sorting option
Speaking of the Albums screen, iOS 18.4 now lets you sort that view in a new way too.
Joining the existing Sort by Name and Sort by Custom Order options, there’s a third sorting method available for your Albums screen:
This will rearrange your albums and folders to bump the most recently changed ones to the top.
The Albums screen has another change worth noting briefly: Grid and List have been renamed to List View and Key Photo. This change doesn’t make a functional difference, and to me it reads as more confusing, so it’s unclear why Apple’s changing things.
#3: Disabling albums for privacy
There are a couple albums included by default in the Photos app that you may or may not want visible for privacy reasons.
No, I’m not talking about the ‘Hidden’ album. Though that album certainly has its own privacy implications, I’m referring to two others:
- Recently Viewed
- Recently Shared
Like their names imply, these albums collect all the photos and videos that you last looked at, or last shared with someone else.
I’d guess that for most users, they won’t have a problem keeping these albums visible in the Photos app.
But for anyone who—for privacy reasons or otherwise—want to disable them, iOS 18.4 adds a new Settings toggle to do just that.
You can find this toggle by visiting Settings ⇾ Apps ⇾ Photos ⇾ then scrolling down to find ‘Show Recently Viewed & Shared.’ It’s right below where you can also disable the ‘Hidden’ album.
Within the redesigned Photos app, two of the main sections you’ll find are Utilities and Media Types.
- Utilities contains collections like Favorites, Hidden, Duplicates, Map, Receipts, Imports, and a lot more.
- Media Types includes Videos, Selfies, Live Photos, Portrait, Panoramas, and more.
Previously, these collections were listed in a fixed order that couldn’t be changed.
Now in iOS 18.4, you’ll find a new ‘Edit’ button inside each collection that lets you reorder the list to your exact liking.
Were any of these iOS 18.4 Photos updates on your wish list? What other changes do you hope to see? Let us know in the comments.
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