Chapter 03 · Browse
3.6Collections
Collections are groups of photographs you gather in Frames, kept in your catalogue, in an order you set by hand, and carried to your other devices when Sync is on.
A collection can hold photographs from your Photos library and from folder sources side by side. Nothing about it is written into Photos. A photograph on a card joins a collection once it is imported.
Making one. Select photographs, then choose Add to… › New Collection from Selection: in the bar along the bottom on iPhone and iPad, in the menu under a photograph you touch and hold, or in the menu under a right-click on the Mac. Or choose New Collection… from the ＋ beside COLLECTIONS in the sidebar or the Library. Add to… lists your collections first, inside their folders, then your Photos albums.
Folders. Collections sit in folders, nested as deep as you like. Rename, move and delete collections and folders from their menus; on the Mac you can also drag a collection onto a folder. Deleting a folder that holds collections asks whether they move up a level or go with it. Deleting a collection leaves its photographs in your library.
Order. A collection opens in Collection order, its own order. Photographs you add go to the end. To move one, drag it within the grid on the Mac; on iPhone and iPad, touch and hold it, then drag it up or down. Select All takes the photographs in this order, so a slideshow or an export of the whole collection follows it. Choose another order from Sort to look at it another way; Collection order stays in the list while the collection is open.
On another device. A photograph a collection holds that this device does not have, such as one in a folder source on your Mac, appears dimmed in its place with its number and the words On another device. Frames never downloads it. Counts include these. A photograph you delete in Frames leaves every collection on every device. Share as Contact Sheet, in a collection’s menu, lays all of its photographs out in the collection’s order; a photograph held on another device appears as a grey frame with its number.
Undo. Undo (⌘Z on the Mac) reverses adding, removing, moving, renaming, filing and deleting, as it reverses a rating.
On Apple TV, collections made on your other devices appear under Collections when you choose what to show, to browse and present.