Products · Product
Apple Photos
Raised as a usability problem by 106 people on Hacker News over 15 years (2012–2026), in 91 threads.
No issue was raised by at least 3 people in 3 threads this year.
- 1Photos harder to access from other appsUnreviewed
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- 1Photos harder to access from other appsUnreviewed
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Every issue, all time, most people first
Photos harder to access from other appsUnreviewed
20122026- Apps that write to the photo library cannot read back what they saved or deep link to it2026-08-18
- Recent Photos app update makes the user want to leave Apple's ecosystem2024-12-18
- Photos.app is inferior to iPhoto, with features removed2024-04-20
Photo search is poor, making pictures hard to findUnreviewed
20122026- Searching for one specific photo in the interface is more frustrating than browsing folders2026-09-06
- Photo search on iOS is poor, so finding and sorting images is hard2026-04-02
- Finding a specific photo in a large library is a long, frustrating search2025-11-10
Managed libraries hide photo files, causing confusion about file locationsUnreviewed
20122026- Photos library is a package file hidden from normal folder browsing, hard to locate2024-08-31
- Photos app creates fake virtual folders and hides real files behind cryptic names2023-09-27
- Users can't easily find where their photo files were actually stored2021-12-31
Hard to tell how to remove photos without deleting them everywhereUnreviewed
20122026- Removing a set deleted photos, and originals became very hard to find2020-04-21
- Hard to tell how to remove photos without deleting them everywhere2018-05-01
- User cannot figure out how to delete a photo2015-08-05
Overlapping, confusing photo and album groupings make things hard to findUnreviewed
20122026- Photos in shared albums now show newest first, breaking the story order2025-03-04
- Cannot move photos between albums or albums between folders, making organizing hundreds of photos hard2023-07-10
- Photos and albums show overlapping, confusing groupings; hard to find things2016-12-13
Moving library to another disk takes days because app reads every fileUnreviewed
20122026- Moving the library took days and never finished, apparently rewriting every file2024-01-14
- Moving the library to another disk takes days because the app reads every file2021-08-30
- Library takes about a month to resync after reinstalling macOS2020-03-03
Unreviewed issues were grouped by machine: Claude Haiku labelled each comment as a usability complaint, named what it's about and summed up the problem in a line, and a small model grouped similar problems. Nobody has checked them by hand. Expect mistakes.
The newest 50 complaints
- Manually tagging people in photos and videos is frustrating, and impossible on iOS2026-10-16
- Confusing to find buttons and albums; must scroll up or down to locate them2026-10-16
- Searching for one specific photo in the interface is more frustrating than browsing folders2026-09-06
- Apps that write to the photo library cannot read back what they saved or deep link to it2026-08-18
- Photo search on iOS is poor, so finding and sorting images is hard2026-04-02
- Exporting originals hangs, and opening or switching libraries risks crashing2026-03-30
- Only offers all photos locally or opaque optimized storage, making disk usage hard to manage2026-03-06
- Can't browse photos on the iPhone without first syncing through slow iCloud2026-01-19
- No progress indicator during export; errors shown in truncated popup hard to read2026-01-12
- Mac Photos only downloads phone uploads, not the full iCloud library, despite settings2026-01-11
- Apple's AI object removal tool is nearly unusable compared to rivals2026-01-08
- Hard to use without mystery meat guessing; every interaction unpleasant2025-12-02
- Beachballs and dropped keystrokes when creating folders or naming photos2025-12-02
- Sync fails silently, giving users no error message when something goes wrong2025-12-01
- Can't export everything in Photos; no select all button to work around it2025-11-13
- Finding a specific photo in a large library is a long, frustrating search2025-11-10
- Deleting in iCloud removes photos everywhere, and moving photos between libraries is hard2025-11-04
- Photos redesign and iCloud abstraction frustrate the user2025-09-16
- Photo search is ludicrously poor, so finding pictures is hard2025-08-18
- Advanced photo managers make browsing and deleting photos extremely slow2025-07-14
- Sort order reverses between sections, and each section's visual effects differ, so it's confusing2025-06-07
- Can't convert WebP images in camera gallery; extension shows blank; multi-step workaround needed2025-05-13
- Can't easily organize photos to find them later; must scroll the timeline2025-05-04
- Sharing an album with friends is full of confusing UX problems2025-03-10
- Photos in shared albums now show newest first, breaking the story order2025-03-04
- HDR images in JPEG XL, AVIF, and HEIF from other devices display wrong or fail to share2025-03-04
- Declining the opt-in makes photo browsing miserable with repeated prompts and notifications2025-01-15
- A privacy option is hard to find in the settings menu2024-12-29
- Photos app is slow to scroll and crashes once the library gets big2024-12-29
- Opt-out choice is visually hidden or downplayed, pushing users to share data2024-12-29
- Opt-in choice is presented in a confusing, dark-pattern-like way people don't read2024-12-29
- Opting out is tiresome: users must hunt for each switch and recheck after every update2024-12-29
- Recent Photos app update makes the user want to leave Apple's ecosystem2024-12-18
- Moved controls made the user fumble to find options at a counter2024-12-02
- Full-screen video with audio requires multiple taps and several failed attempts every time2024-12-01
- Gets stuck in views with no clear way back to camera roll2024-10-27
- GIFs with certain encoding fail to be recognised or play in Photos2024-09-30
- Becomes painfully slow with large photo libraries, and database conversions take days2024-09-10
- Users can't find the Photos library through Lightroom's browse dialog, forcing workarounds2024-08-31
- Photos library is a package file hidden from normal folder browsing, hard to locate2024-08-31
- Photos.app is inferior to iPhoto, with features removed2024-04-20
- Moving the library took days and never finished, apparently rewriting every file2024-01-14
- Drag-selecting many photos is fiddly and hidden, found only by accident2023-12-29
- Photos is overengineered and cluttered, and photos are harder to access from other apps2023-11-25
- Very hard to get all photos out of the app2023-10-30
- Photos app creates fake virtual folders and hides real files behind cryptic names2023-09-27
- Exporting photos from macOS Photos makes JPEGs much larger than the originals2023-07-11
- Cannot move photos between albums or albums between folders, making organizing hundreds of photos hard2023-07-10
- Raw camera images turn pink and are unusable for editing2023-07-02
- Swipe-back doesn't work on some screens, and no visible back button shows how to exit2023-05-11