> 2: When I sort my photos on a Pixel, I sort them in folders. The "camera" folder is where the unsorted photos are. When I sit in a bus or in a cafe, I go through it and sort the new photos into folders. This seems impossible on iPhones. Everything stays in the main folder forever. You can add photos to albums, but that does not remove them from the main folder. So there is no way to know which photos I have already sorted.

This along with iOS dumping pictures from WhatsApp, etc. into your main pictures folder is such a huge deal breaker for me. If I am backing up my pictures to a hard drive, there is no easy way to select just the pictures taken on my phone. Seems like such an oversight but I suspect it's a way to drive people to sign up for iCloud storage.

> This along with iOS dumping pictures from WhatsApp, etc. into your main pictures folder is such a huge deal breaker for me.

This is WhatsApp's fault. "Settings > Chats > Save To Photos OFF" should fix it

iOS 26 fixes this with an option to only show photos not in an album.

Additionally, if you are backing up photos to a hard drive you will be much better off using an app like PhotoSync. It has a one time payment and transfers direct to whatever you want with far less errors and more control than Apple’s terrible buggy disaster that is transferring photos by wire.

I can’t believe there isn’t a fix for this. I thought I was the only person with these problems. How have they persisted for so long?

The inability to sync albums as folders onto my Mac is my #1 complaint about iPhones. It's probably to sell iCloud.

Isn't that something WhatsApp is specifically doing tho? I haven't seen this behavior.