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Albarium is an iPhone app for putting your albums in Photos in order. One overview shows which albums are empty, have a duplicate name or cover just one day, and you can merge albums, rename them, put them in a folder or remove them. Before every action on your albums, the app saves how they were, so you can undo that action.

What the app does

What the app does not do

Frequently asked questions

What access does the app need, and why?

The app asks for Full Access to your photos. It reads them for the overview. It changes your library to merge, rename, move into folders and remove albums, and to move or delete the photos you choose in the workbench.

Full access is needed because the app has to see which photos are in each album. With limited access the app may see only the photos you selected, and then not everything in your albums. Counts, dates and overlap would then be wrong, and merging could leave photos behind. So the app only works with full access. What exactly iOS lets the app see with limited access, we have not tested (see the next question).

The app asks for no other access: not your location, not your camera and not your contacts. Place names come from the location already stored in your photos, looked up in a list that is part of the app.

What happens with limited access?

The app shows a short explanation with one button to Settings. To change it:

  1. Tap Open Settings. Settings opens on the Albarium page.
  2. Choose Photos › Full Access.
  3. Come back to the app. The overview starts by itself.

The same applies if you denied access. If access to photos is restricted on your iPhone, for example by Screen Time or a management profile, the app shows the screen Access to photos is restricted, without these steps. Only the person who manages your iPhone can change it; without access the app cannot do anything, and the Open Settings button is turned off. If you later set access back to limited or off, the app shows this explanation again.

We checked this screen by simulating limited access in the simulator. It has not been tested with a real selection of photos in iOS.

What happens to my photos when I remove an album?

They stay. Removing an album never deletes photos: they stay in your library and in every other album they are in. If it holds photos that would then be in none of your own albums, the app puts them in an archive album by default; you can choose otherwise when removing.

Before you remove albums, the app shows for each album, in one sentence, how many photos it holds and where they will still be. Only in these albums (with one album: only in this album) means: in no album of yours that stays. Also elsewhere means: also in an album of yours that stays. This is about your own albums, the albums the app can change; shared and synced albums do not count. If a photo is in more than one of the albums that go and in no album that stays, it counts at the first of those albums in the list. At the next ones it is already counted under that album, for example 4 already counted under Tuin (if they come from more than one album higher in the list, already counted above). That way the parts of each album add up to the number of photos in that album, and the only in these albums of all the albums together add up to the number above the choices: the photos that are in none of your own albums that stay, each once. In also elsewhere, the same photo can count for more than one album.

If some photos are only in those albums, you choose what happens to them:

Below that, on its own, is Review them first in the workbench. There you look at those photos first, from all the albums that go, together: delete what can go, move what belongs in another album. Then you remove the albums.

Merging also removes the original albums. All the photos you see in those albums are then in the new album. When you merge albums you selected yourself, you can keep the old albums: in the Merge screen, turn off Remove the original albums. In a proposal, the day albums are removed when you choose Merge into one album. To keep them, choose Put in a folder. That choice is only there when folders are on (see the question about folders) and when a folder changes something: when the day albums are already together in a folder, with nothing else in it, there is no Put in a folder.

The exception is albums that hold a photo you hid in Photos. If the app thinks so, it leaves such an album in place when you remove or merge albums, also in a proposal (see the question about hidden photos). When removing, such an album is listed with Stays. The heading above the list then says how many albums go, and the photo counts and the choices are only about the albums that go. Restoring leaves such an album in place too (see the question about hidden photos).

You can remove empty albums in one go. Tap Empty albums at the top, or choose the filter Empty. Above the list you then see Remove the 6 empty albums, with your number. It opens the same screen as Remove Albums when selecting, with every empty album in the list that the app can change; shared and synced albums are left out. If you search the list, only the empty albums that match your search count. Empty albums that the app thinks probably hold a hidden photo stay, as above: the button does not count them and says how many stay. No photo leaves your library.

iOS asks for your permission before albums are removed (see the question about system confirmations below).

What does the app do with photos I hid in Photos?

The app does not show photos you hid in Photos. They are not in the counts, not among the photos of an album, and not in the workbench or in proposals. A hidden photo does stay in its albums.

What else the app can do with hidden photos depends on what iOS lets it see. We have only tested this in the simulator, on iOS 27.0, with the Hidden album locked; that is the default. There, the app did not get to see the hidden photos at all. What follows applies to that situation:

If you turn off the lock on the Hidden album, or use iOS 26 or a real iPhone, it has not been tested what iOS lets the app see. If iOS does give the app hidden photos, the app keeps only their IDs for each album. With those, it always leaves such albums in place when removing and merging, and restoring is built to put those photos back in their albums. That has not been tested either.

How does undoing work with Rewind?

Before every action on your albums and folders, Rewind saves a snapshot: album names, folders, the order, and which photos are in which album. It does not contain the photos themselves. If the snapshot cannot be saved, the action does not start. Moving photos to another album in the workbench is such an action too. Deleting photos in the workbench is not: it is not in the log, and the app cannot put it back (see "What cannot be undone?").

You can restore in these places:

In Rewind, the app first asks whether you are sure. That question names the action by its title. Usually that is the name of an album or folder:

If the action was about several albums, the title names one of them. If the album or folder has no name, the question calls it Untitled album or Untitled folder. A restore has the title of the action it undid.

If there are later actions, the question says how many, and that they are undone too, as far as they changed anything. That count skips actions that were already undone, but does include actions that failed or changed nothing. The question does not show what changes for each album; it only names albums that stay because the app thinks they hold a hidden photo (see the question about hidden photos). Undo moving and Undo action restore right away, without a preview and without a question from the app. So does Undo, unless there is an action after it: then the app asks this question first. After restoring, Undo says how many later actions were undone too. If albums or folders have to go when restoring, iOS does ask for permission for that.

About the bar with Undo action: it is about your latest action that succeeded. If an action fails, or is only partly carried out, while the bar is still there, the bar is still about the action before it. Undo action then puts your albums back to before that earlier action, and so also undoes what the failed action had already done. The bar goes away when a restore succeeds and changes something in your albums. It also goes away when you restore to before the action in the bar and there is nothing to restore, for example when you tap Undo action or Undo while your albums are already that way. And it goes away when the app starts again. If there was nothing to restore, the app says so. If restoring fails, or you don't allow the question from iOS, the app says so too, and the bar stays.

What to know about restoring:

What cannot be undone?

Where do deleted photos go, and how long do they stay there?

Only the workbench deletes photos, and only after your review and the iOS confirmation. Those photos go to Recently Deleted in Photos. You can put them back from there in Photos until iOS deletes them for good. How long they stay in Recently Deleted is decided by iOS, not by the app. If you delete them from Recently Deleted yourself, they are gone sooner.

Removing an album sends no photos to Recently Deleted. The photos simply stay in your library.

How do folders work, and what do I see of them in Photos?

You can put albums in a folder from the app:

With the first two you choose a new folder or an existing one; a proposal always makes a new folder, where the day albums are: at the top level, or in their folder, and never with the name of that folder. The albums stay as they are.

In Photos, a folder appears under Collections › Albums, as a card with small covers of the albums inside. Tap it to see the albums. This was checked in our test setup on iOS 26.5 and iOS 27.

Folders are on by default in the app. If you prefer to keep all albums at the top level, turn off Folders in the app's Settings (the gear in the Albums tab). The choices above then no longer appear. Folders you already have stay, and restoring also puts folders back if they are in the snapshot. The switch is also there in case a later version of iOS starts treating folders differently.

The app has no action to remove a folder. Through the app, a folder only disappears when you restore (folders added since that moment are then removed) and with the proposal for a folder of day albums from one month, when all those day albums become one album (see Proposals at the top). iOS asks for your permission for that too.

What can the app do with shared albums and the Shared Library?

Shared albums (iCloud) appear in the app with the label Read-only. You can look at them, but you cannot select them for an action or clean them up in the workbench. They are not part of proposals or snapshots either. How shared albums behave on a real iPhone has not been tested yet: our test setup has none. That is why the app treats them as read-only for now. The same goes for albums synced from a computer.

Shared Library. iOS does not let apps see which photos come from the Shared Library. This means:

How does the workbench work?

Open an album and tap Clean Up. You also reach the workbench:

The workbench looks only at those photos, on your iPhone, with the image model of iOS. It looks for three kinds:

You can also go through all the photos yourself. Swipe left to delete, right to keep, and down to move a photo to another album. Every swipe is also a button, and you can undo each step.

Nothing goes until you finish and confirm. The summary shows everything once more. Photos are moved first; Rewind saves your albums beforehand, so you can undo that. Then iOS asks you once to allow deleting all the photos you chose. A photo you delete goes to Recently Deleted and so leaves all your albums, not just the album you are cleaning up. In our tests on iOS 27, iOS also said in that question how many albums the photos disappear from. If you don't allow it, or deleting fails, nothing is deleted. The move did happen, and you can undo it right away or later in Rewind. If you try again after that, the app only deletes: it does not move the photos again, also not if you undid the move. The deletion itself does not go into Rewind.

Good to know:

When does iOS ask for confirmation?

Some things iOS does not let an app do without your permission. The question comes from iOS itself, in its own window, not from the app.

For creating albums, renaming them, and adding photos to an album or taking them out, iOS asks nothing. When merging, putting in a folder and removing, the app does show you a preview first, when renaming with a pattern the new names first, and in the workbench a summary first. When you rename one album, you only see the name field and the old name. Restoring with Undo, Undo moving, Undo action or Put everything back as it was starts right away, without a preview. In Rewind, the app first asks whether you are sure, but there too without a preview per album; the question only names albums that stay because the app thinks they hold a hidden photo. Undo asks the same question when there is an action after it.

If you don't allow something, that part does not happen. When merging, the new album may then already exist while the old albums are still there too. The app tells you so and offers Put everything back as it was right away. If you don't allow the question when restoring, after the app had already put part of it back, your albums are only partly back as they were. The app says that too; then try once more with the same button.

Which devices does the app work on?

An iPhone with iOS 26 or later. The bar with Undo action at the bottom of the screen is there from iOS 26.1. On iOS 26.0 you undo an action on the screen right after it, or in Rewind. The app is available in English and Dutch.

What does the app cost?

In the Netherlands the app costs 6.99 euros, once; in other countries the price is what the App Store shows there. That gets you the whole app: there are no in-app purchases and no subscription.

Payment goes through Apple. Refunds are also requested from Apple.

Contact

If you are stuck, email info@farcon.cloud. Please include which iPhone and iOS version you have, and what you were doing when it went wrong.

Dennis Siersma