iOS 18 Photos App - Recent Days not showing recent photos

Hi Zurarczurx,

Me again. I noticed the same thing, so I did a little test. The days where there seem to be no Recent Days collection on my iPhone, I took less then 4 photos those days. So, I took a photo using my iPhone and looked at Recent Days and it did not show up. I continued taking photos and looking at Rencent Days and discovered that it wasn't until I took 4 photos that a new Recent Days collection appeared. Not sure if that is the reason why, still, Apple or someone there may have decided that if there were less then 4 photos taken in any one day, that it did not warrant a Recent Days collection.

I'm still working with the new Photos app to make sense of it for me, since it doesn't seem that Apple will every admit they made a huge mistake (amidst all the complaining seen everywhere) with this updated redesign to Photos and go back to iOS 17 or give us a better redesign of the iOS 18 Photos app. I must admit though, the ability to customize is an improvement. It's just that they could have left us customize what was great in iOS 17 Photos.

Just sayin'

"Recent Days" is on the iPhone and iPad, but don't find a "Recent Days" section on my Mac. Oh, I see-- you've listed a Mac, but you're talking about the iPhone?

I agree that "Recent Days" seems a bit flaky on the iPhone and iPad. Pictures I took yesterday with my iPhone show up in "Days" on the Mac, but not in "Recent Days" on the iPhone or iPad.

I don't take many pictures with my phone-- I usually use a separate camera-- but I notice that some days when I have taken an iPhone picture or two don't show up at all on the Mac or iPhone.

Makes you wonder…

Since I sync my phone with my Mac through iCloud Photos, I don't do much editing or curating on the phone; I do all that stuff on my Mac. So recent pictures from my Nikon go into albums, and those sync with the phone. iPhone camera pictures sync back to the Mac, and I put them in albums. On my iPhone, when I look for recent pictures that haven't yet been placed, I just look at the bottom of the Library. I haven't found myself using many of the pre-built views-- recently saved, sometimes, but I very seldom look at "Recent Days," "Pinned Collections," "Memories," "Trips," or "Featured Photos." I sometimes enjoy them when they show up in the widget on my iPad, though.

I'm happy those things are there for people who enjoy them, but I feel free to ignore them and make my own albums.

Gar Benedick wrote:… it wasn't until I took 4 photos that a new Recent Days collection appeared.

Great detective work! I never would have suspected this!

I must admit though, the ability to customize is an improvement.

I, too, think customization is really cool! However, we are getting a rash of posts from people who can't find their Utilities section, or something, and don't realize that they've turned it off. Also, if I say, for instance, "Utilities is the section at the very bottom," well, it may not be true!

Apple added a bunch of stuff I don't care about, like Trips, Recently [you name it], etc, which makes navigating through it all crazy, but they gave us the ability to turn it off (but not quite enough ability!) All in all, it seems pretty OK to me, and if I don't worry about it, it doesn't get in the way.

If I filter on "Months" in the library view I get similarly erratic behaviour. I thought that maybe the phone wasn't dating the pics but I can do a Siri search by date and it finds them so it's not the date tag and it's not that the phone needs to complete an index.

Indeed. In the "Months" there are even less photos shown than in the recent days. I am just using them as a quick way to get close to the day I really want to view and then use the the command ⋅⋅⋅ > Show in All Photos to see all photos taken at a similar date.

It is highly inconvenient that Apple has removed the "Days" tab and we are only left with "Months" and "Years" and incomplete "Recent Days". You may want to send a feature request to Apple to bring the Days back.

You're welcome, Zurarczurx 😊