iCloud Photos – Generating a List of Photos not in an Album

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Like most people I take loads of pictures. Some I delete and some I put into albums for events, food pics, etc. Since you can put a picture into multiple albums I tend to use albums a bit like tags by having one picture in multiple relevant albums like a picture of me eating a huge cake in a "food" and a "Me" album which makes it quickly and easily to find a picture I am after by what I remember it had in it.

I can’t usually do this as soon I take the pics, so I will only sort though my recent pictures when I have a minute. However it’s next to impossible to remember which ones have already been sorted and which ones haven't.

Is it possible to create some kind of Smart Album or list showing all media that hasn’t been assigned to an album? I would prefer if it was on the iPhone directly, but something for the Mac or a web based solution would do as well.

Best Answer

As of iOS 10.2.1, you can only do this in Photos for macOS.

  1. Open FileNew Smart Album.
  2. Name your Smart Album whatever you like, eg. Uncategorized.
  3. Simply specify the condition: Album is not Any.

Starting with Photos 2.0, Smart Albums do not refresh instantly with every change. This means that you can drag an uncategorized photo from the Smart Album into multiple folders.