Album folders in Photos app appear grey instead of showing thumbnails

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Level 1

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Album folders in Photos app appear grey instead of showing thumbnails

Hi everyone,

In the Photos app on my Mac and iOS, some of my album folders appear grey instead of showing photo previews. I noticed this happens when the folder only contains sub-albums (maps), rather than individual photos. See below:

Is there a way to make the folder itself display thumbnails from the albums inside, instead of staying grey? It would be much easier to visually recognize them this way. Reason why I use maps inside maps is because I like to map them by the year, otherwise I would have a list of 1999 albums under each other.

Thanks in advance!

[Edited by Moderator]

Posted on Aug 28, 2025 07:36 AM

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Answer 1

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Richard.Taylor

Level 6

15,983 points

Aug 28, 2025 07:59 AM in response to Njamimars

Njamimars wrote: … Is there a way to make the folder itself display thumbnails from the albums inside, instead of staying grey?

In a folder, choose an album. Then tap the More (•••) icon at the upper right and you get this:

Tap the title, and you get this:

This is showing the Key Photos for my album. You can change the Key Photo by tapping that little icon-- it will show the pictures in the album and let you choose the one you want.

The folder picks 4 Key Photos to show in its icon.

Folders can hold albums or other folders. I'm not sure what you mean by "sub-albums (maps.)" All of my folders with folders also have albums. Alhough I have only just tried this, it looks like if a folder has only folders and no albums, then it doesn't pick key Photos. You could, of course, add an album with a Key Photo; four of them if you like. Extra albums and extra included pictures don't take up any extra storage.

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Answer 2

Aug 29, 2025 07:22 AM in response to Njamimars

This is interesting. Actually, I do have folders that have only folders in them-- maybe I should think about this. Maybe just 1 album so the icon isn't blank, labeled zzzz so it stays at the bottom (if sorted alphabetically.) 1 picture in it will do.

Folders in the iPad are rather cooler

I wonder if this will propagate to the iPhone later…

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Answer 3

Njamimars Author

Level 1

13 points

Aug 28, 2025 04:20 PM in response to Richard.Taylor

Richard.Taylor wrote:

Alhough I have only just tried this, it looks like if a folder has only folders and no albums, then it doesn't pick key Photos. You could, of course, add an album with a Key Photo; four of them if you like. Extra albums and extra included pictures don't take up any extra storage.

Thanks for your reply Richard. Yes this is exactly what I meant, the folder only has folders, with that folder containing the actual albums. So Folder (this one isn't showing thumbnails > Folder (this one is showing thumbnails) > Album.

The workaround works but then I have to indeed, add just an album with a couple photo's to it, which is a messy workaround for my "oh so" clean album management haha.

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Answer 4

Njamimars Author

Level 1

13 points

Aug 29, 2025 10:38 AM in response to Richard.Taylor

Richard.Taylor wrote:

This is interesting. Actually, I do have folders that have only folders in them-- maybe I should think about this. Maybe just 1 album so the icon isn't blank, labeled zzzz so it stays at the bottom (if sorted alphabetically.) 1 picture in it will do.

Folders in the iPad are rather cooler

https://discussions.apple.com/content/attachment/514fa38b-9fa9-40ed-b68c-db103a7ac7d1

I wonder if this will propagate to the iPhone later…

Yeah thanks for this, I had to somehow create 4 albums inside the folder, but now it will indeed show these 4 photo's on it. Should do it for now, but hopefully it will inherit the photo's inside the other folders if the direct folder doesn't contain a photo per sé.

Have a good evening!

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