Saving photos to files and deleting

Another analogy is that albums are like playlists in iTunes. A song track can be in multiple playlists but only take up space once in the library. Albums are just like that.

Note: if you don't use iTunes or playlists this reply will self delete in 10, 9, 8, … seconds.

Just defending OP in that saving photos to Files is far more useful than Albums for certain things due to subfolders (file structure) in Files that makes it easier to retrieve photos. I use Albums for things I like to “see” again (people, places) and Files for information that’s worth keeping (e.g., screenshots of confirmations of payment, steps in a process) and pictures I mark up (of my creative work-in-progress and of creative inspiration).

Mixed_up_dolly_ wrote:

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basically as I see it you create a file and your duplicating the image as it stays in the main feed what’s the point?

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Perhaps it will help to think of a metaphor of a real library with books on their shelves and several catalogs to help us to find the book we want to borrow.

Each book will be listed in several catalogs - by the title, by the author, by the subject, etc. To find the book, we will not have to search all shelves, we just use the catalog that is sorted in the way we want. We use the catalog sorted by the author, if we know the author, or use the catalog sorted by the title, if we know the title. And when we have found the book in the catalog, we are not supposed to tear out the page with the title of the book, we leave the catalog as it is. And we are also not allowed to move the books to different shelves.

Apple is offering us a Photos Library with many predefined catalogs. They are created automatically for us, based on all items in the library. Most catalogs are sorted by the date the photo has been taken, some are sorted by the date the photo has been imported, some are showing a subset of the library based on the media kind. Love the library and its catalogs as the librarian has set it up, then create your own catalogues, aka folders and albums.

The basic structure should stay as it is, to make it easier for Photos to sync it with iCloud Photos between all your devices, independent of the device model and the system version.

We built our own structure on top of it.

You can export the photo from photos and save it in the files app. You can then delete from the photos app.

or do you mean placing into an album? Your photos will always remain in the library regardless of how many albums you add each image into.

I want to expand a bit on what I think that you are saying, as muggy figured out, that you'd like to "move" a picture from your Library to an album, and you'd like the picture to be removed from the Library so it doesn't take up extra space. Is that right?

If that's what you mean, then muggy was right to reassure you that having a picture in both the Library and in an Album takes up no more space. Here's the thing: the Library is a list of all the pictures you have. That's it. If it's on the phone, you can find it in Library.

An album is a list of pictures you want to see together. So a picture can be on the list for an album of pictures of your "Aunt Liz" and also be on the list for an album of "Mom's Siblings." The picture is "in" both albums, but since they are only lists, the pictures do not take up any more memory. And it will still be listed in the Library view. It's a pretty clever way of letting you organize your pictures in several different ways.

Here is the problem…I have millions of pictures related to different interests: gardening design, plants I might seek for my garden, grandchildren, etc. But also pictures unrelated to any of these…a business card, a broken item I need to repair, etc. If I am looking for something like the business card, I have to page thru hundreds of other pictures that could instead be in a folder or album so that it is easier to find the unrelated thing.

That seems like a good system.

The thing is, most of us who spend time on this forum have Macs, and so, in Photos on a Mac, we can make several levels of sub-folders, and these transfer to the iPhone though iCloud synchronization. So I have no reason to use your system, and I may not think of using Files as an adjunct to Photos. But that seems very reasonable. Thanks for the idea.