iOS photos 26 is there anyway to stop the behavior of expanding the image

Is there any way to prevent iOS 26 Photos from expanding the image? It automatically expands to fill in the sides, which cuts off the top of the bottom of the image. In edit mode, you can see the whole image, but if you hit cancel, it cuts off the top on the bottom of the image you can’t see it anymore. So for any image that is less wide than the aspect ratio of the phone’s screen it cuts off the top of the bottom. not unlike what the new slideshow did. The only advice I saw online was to crop the top and the bottom out so the entire image is missing the top of the bottom. This way, the entire image is messed up. It still looks the same, but technically now it’s the whole image you can see. I would think this would be a setting in view settings. Like “view entire image”. Right now it’s “crop to fill screen”, with no way to change it. The new Preview app shows the entire image. that is, it doesn’t expand to cut off the top and the bottom of the image. Does this mean I have to stop using the Photos app and just use Preview now, the way I used to use photos, except unlike before you can’t swipe right and left. So, going into files doesn’t work as well as it did either at least you could swipe left and right now you can’t do that anymore. You have to hit the back button to go to the next image.

iPhone 15 Plus

Posted on Sep 16, 2025 06:38 AM

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1 reply

Sep 16, 2025 07:05 AM in response to markfromlandolakes

I just realized this behavior is inconsistent. Some photos it will auto-expand and others it will not. Like, if I crop it and make it a little bit more narrow, then you can see the entire image. I’m not sure how it decides what to auto expand filling in the right in the left and when it doesn’t. It’s very annoying. I would just like the photos to view images the way it did before instead of making a few of my images in my library hard to see.


ADDITION:


Actually, if I crop the image and make the image narrower by just a hair, essentially, not changing the image, it displays correctly. So actually, this is a workaround. I don’t understand it. But at least I have a solution.

iOS photos 26 is there anyway to stop the behavior of expanding the image

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