What has happened to the Camera Roll in iOS 18 ?

Not really. The "Camera Roll" was renamed to "Recents". Until iOS 18 it was the place where all 'new' images were placed (photos from iPhone camera, Facebook, WhatsApp, etc.) As other people have stated, you could choose to download some or all of them to your Mac or PC, edit/organize them, then maybe upload some of them back to the phone, organized by Mac/PC folder.

iOS 18 changed all that. The images in Recents/Camera Roll are now no longer readily identifiable.

A whole bunch of us would like the Recents/Camera Roll (we don't really care what its called) feature back again!

Cheers.

Apprecaite your response and I had actually found that solution from other threads - problem is that veiwing the camera roll in that way does not really allow you to housekeep it in any sensible way. The images are available one by one and not in a mass selctable way. I have circa 25k images on the phone oraganised by Adobe Lightroom plus around 1100 images in the Camera Roll category. For me the CR is a bit like your download folder where images that are still to be sorted, and others that may never need sorting, reside. Every now and then I clean them up but some images will never need categorising, stuff like gas and water meter readings, postal receipts, photos of holiday hire cars, a load of stuff thats best to keep for a while for legals reasons etc, etc. Not sure what Apple have acehived by placing all the photos in one pot without the ability to then filter the pot. Currently looking around other photo gallery apps to provide an alternative.

the name might have gone but everyone will tell you that OS18 is the first time it's actually fully disappeared - up until this last change you could always get to your recent photos without them being mixed in with everything else.

iOS 18 changed all that. The images in Recents/Camera Roll are now no longer readily identifiable.

A whole bunch of us would like the Recents/Camera Roll (we don't really care what its called) feature back again!

Cheers.

You are correct about that. However, you are not addressing Apple here, the only people that have any control about changing things. We are users just like you and can be just a frustrated. If you wish to let Apple know your thoughts and feelings about this issue, then you need to let them know. Use this link, Feedback - iPhone - Apple

thanks for your input. I think any very recent photo will indeed show in those sections as you suggest but older ones, that have been on the Camera roll a bit longer, will start to mix in with other photos uploaded to the phone from other sources. Remember lots of people take photos on other camera equipment and share it to their iPhone. Lots of people also used Adobe and other software to manipulate and organise their photos as, with respect, they are occassionally better software products than Apples own. All these softwares though do run on the MAC OS and Apple therfore should provide better support and continued integration with the iPhone photo gallery. Other threads on the same subject had gained quite a lot of ticked support so I know I have much company in my frustration with these recent changes. My biggest gripe is that i'm not sure what they've acheived by putting everything into one mega pot - you can still filter under various headings to get to differnt types of photo groups so I don't understand why Apple don't just make "camera roll" an additional filter option in the current iOS. I think that owould resolve it. I'd be interested to hear if anyone has used an alternative Photo Gallery app on their phones that works with imported photo folders such as those created by Adobe and other 3rd party providers?

If you scroll down to Utilities in the photo app are none of those options what you are looking for? Like if you choose Recently Saved does it not function the same as the old Recent Photos label did? It does for me so maybe I’m misunderstanding. I can also get to recently saved under pinned collections which you could reorder to show near the top if you want to get to it without needing to scroll

The difference is really clear but probably not to someone that doesn't use non Apple software to edit their photos. So for me... I take some of my photos on my iphone, I choose which ones to download for editing on Adobe Lightroom, I delete those original photos from my iPhone and then after I have edited them and organised them into apprpriate folders I re-share them with the iPhone again in an organised way via syncing. So the edited images are stored on my Mac by Lightroom in the "pictures" folder that is available by default on the Mac and you can then choose which folders from pictures you want to store back on your iphone when you come to sync your phone with your computer.

This process therefore leaves any photos you choose not to edit in the camera roll and therefore for me those were the only photos that appeared under "library" on the iPhone, the photos I uploaded from Lightroom did not appear in the Library section. So in the past Library = iPhone photos only and other images did not appear in there. Today everything appears in Library en mass regardless of it's source or status.

So that you can see I am not making this up or imagining there is an issue where there isn't one, I am uploading a single message from another similar Apple thread clearly showing quite a lot of support against the impact of this recent change.

g_b_hall wrote:

Not really. The "Camera Roll" was renamed to "Recents".

And the features changed. Things will keep changing.

I thought this feature was lost too, but Camera Roll - photos that you have not downloaded can simply be found within the Camera app. You will have to scrub the line of photos at the bottom. All previously downloaded photos are removed from the Camera app, but still visible in the Photos app.

I guess it depends on what you define as “very recent”. For me that option shows photos going back to 2017 so recent is very loosely used. My full library has photos back to 2006 (obviously pre-iPhone but had been imported in when I finally got on the iPhone train back in 2011). I guess outside of it not being named Camera Roll anymore I’m just completely misunderstanding what it is that you aren’t seeing reflected like you want it to be. Other than the actual format changes that came with how the photo app looks since iOS 18 released and I think some of the extra filtering options that appear under Utilities I don’t notice a real difference in how my photos are organized…in respect to both actual photos taken on one of my iPhones through the years or ones imported from other sources. Hopefully you’ll be able to find a 3rd party app that better fits what you are looking for.

Tjornelund wrote:

the name might have gone but everyone will tell you that OS18 is the first time it's actually fully disappeared - up until this last change you could always get to your recent photos without them being mixed in with everything else.

I'm not sure what you mean by "everything else." What else would I have in Photos but photos? The Library shows all of my recent photos. I have it sorted so that the most recent are at the bottom.

The Camera Roll has been gone since iOS 13.