Photos sorting order in iOS 18

PHOTOS appear right to left chronologically in iOS 18! I wasn’t expecting much in Photos—and I really like the new organization, layout etc. except, in “Days” view, the days appear in reverse calendar direction. That is, if today is Saturday, it appears on the top left, with Fr, Th, We, etc. to the right. This view sort of makes sense for the “Recent Days” panel, but I find it confusing and annoying in the “Days” view.

At least in “Days” view the most recent photos are on TOP with older photos going down. Unfortunately that is the OPPOSITE of the way they are displayed in the (all) “Photos” Library view, which puts the oldest photos on top, most recent on bottom.

And no, a single tap on the up/down arrow button doesn’t reverse the sort direction as it does in a database or spreadsheet. It brings up a menu to choose sorting by “most recently added” or “date captured”. Whatever you choose, the sort direction remains as described above.

Instead of scolding Apple for tossing out fifty years of interface design knowledge (again), I’ll just ask, please tell me I’m missing something obvious here.

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I see what you mean. (For others, tap “Recent Days” from the main panel to get Days view).

I assume that this is a side-effect of putting the most recent events at the top. Ore more accurately, they probably just told the iOS container object to sort the objects in reverse-date-order, and that’s what we got.

I think it would probably be more confusing if the date increased from left-to-right, but decreased from top-to-bottom.

I think it might work fine to sort the dates in increasing order, but then make the view open at the bottom of the page. I think I’ll suggest that on Apple Feedback.

And yes, the collage at the top of the main screen is opposite. It’s putting the oldest content on top, so everything appears in a logical order. It was a bit surprising seeing the app open up at what effectively the middle of the page, allowing me to scroll up to see the library or down to see various categories.

Of course, for me, I don’t care about any of this. My usual routine is to sync everything to Photos on my Mac, then delete the pictures from my phone, syncing selected albums (including the most recent 6 months) back to the phone. So everything I care about is in the “From My Mac” section. Unfortunately, I can’t strip-down the main screen to just “From My Mac” and “Library”.

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I’m in the same boat. I’d really like options for what categories to display in iPhone Photos. All I’d really need there is Camera Roll and From My Mac since that’s where I sync everything to anyway.

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I don’t have a problem with the sorting. The only way to access the Days panel is from the ‘Recent Days’ entry, sorted by the most recent first. Since you are most likely to use it for your most recent days, it makes sense that they should be shown first. Within each day, the sort order is from earliest to latest. If I think of each day tile as the entry to an album of that day’s photos, it makes sense to list them that way.

The progression in the Library part is ‘Years,’ ‘Months,’ and 'All. If you tap a specific day, you now have the ‘All’ display with the first photo on that day highlighted.