Despite manually arranging the order of my albums in Photos, they keep ending up re-arranged somehow. How do I lock in the order of albums to my own arrangement? This occurs across all my devices - iMac, MacBook, iPad etc, but each differently.
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Thanks Richard, but your solution appears to be a work-around that doesn't solve the underlying problem. Actually you are right and thanks for pointing this out - it is the folders that will not remain in designated order, while the albums within tend to remain arranged as intended. Relying on labeling with dates or alphabetized won't work in my case, as I have a large number labeled by subjects that have their own categories and sub-categories, etc.
When I right click on "My Albums", the only choices are to sort by name (alphabetically), or by date. None of these provide for setting one's own order, which is what I need it to do (and stay put!) This never happened with earlier versions of Photos. I really hope someone at Apple or in the wild can provide a solution.
Thanks Richard, but your solution appears to be a work-around that doesn't solve the underlying problem. Actually you are right and thanks for pointing this out - it is the folders that will not remain in designated order, while the albums within tend to remain arranged as intended. Relying on labeling with dates or alphabetized won't work in my case, as I have a large number labeled by subjects that have their own categories and sub-categories, etc.
When I right click on "My Albums", the only choices are to sort by name (alphabetically), or by date. None of these provide for setting one's own order, which is what I need it to do (and stay put!) This never happened with earlier versions of Photos. I really hope someone at Apple or in the wild can provide a solution.
Are you using iCloud Photos? If you change the sorting on one of your devices, the order of the albums may change on the synced devices as well, particularly, if you are also having smart albums, that cannot be shown on iOs devices.
And any system update can change the manual sorting, if the system update requires a rebuilding and updating of the library. As far as I can tell, the only solution to make the manual sort order stable is to name the albums and folders according to the desired sort order. And it helps a lot to break down the complexity by structuring the list of albums with folders. I am using plenty of folders and subfolders with at most ten items in each folders, so I do not need to drag the albums a long distance, when dragging them to rearrange them. And folders can be collapsed, so we can shorten the list of albums and focus on the few albums we are currently working with. It is really worthwhile to invest some work into the organisation of your albums - Consider to use folders like drwers in a filing cabinet, neatly labeled, for easy access.
For example, my folder with albums with travel pictures:
vlc8uo wrote: This never happened with earlier versions of Photos. I really hope someone at Apple or in the wild can provide a solution.
The thing is, I too have multiple folders and sub-folders, but it still doesn't happen to me (except for that 1 nomadic Smart Folder!) So what's the difference? I imagine that you have restarted you computer-- always the first thing we try.
Have you tried rebuilding your Library? Close Photos and re-launch by "option-command-clicking" the app icon, and telling the pop-up dialog to repair. It may take a few minutes. As always, it's good to have a backup of the Library before doing something like this. If you use iCloud to synchronize Photos on your devices, this may confuse it for awhile. I would disconnect the Library from iCloud before messing around with it.
What happens when you're using another Library? Do the folders still wander around? If you don't have another Library, you can make one by closing Photos and then option-clicking on the Photos icon. Then import a bunch of pictures to it and make some folders and albums. See if the problem recurs with this new library.
I would try making another account, and then opening the problem Library as this new user.
It's always worthwhile to re-start the computer in Safe Mode. This bypasses certain potentially disruptive processes. Safe Mode is different for different computers, so see this:
Start up your Mac in safe mode - Apple Support
The idea is to find out if the problem is with the Library, with your account, or with caches and login items, or even one or two pictures that are corrupted-- stuff like that. One of these steps may fix the problem, but their failure to work is also diagnostic.
By the way-- is your Photos Library in the Pictures folder on your Mac, or is it on an external drive. If it's on an external drive, there are a couple of things to watch out for, like formatting, Time Machine, and ownership.
Move your Photos library to save space on your Mac - Apple Support
I have a couple of smart folders (not all!) that keep moving for some reason-- I want them to be first under "My Albums" and they keep jumping to last-- I don't get it, and I haven't found a good solution. But my regular albums seem less rambunctious and stay in place. Organizing the albums into folders my be what helps.
It's useful that I've named my albums so that putting them in alphabetical order gets them organized as I like. I put them in folders and then control-click to get this menu:
Alphabetical order is fine for albums with Families or Locations. Most of my albums I label with dates, year-month (and maybe day) so that they alphabetize in order. That way, if they do joggle around, I can just "sort" and they all go back where I want.
Photos album order keep changing
