How to see if and where hidden photos exist in iOS albums

[gamma0]

Hello!
I did not find anything that could help with the search. My iOS version is 15.6 on an iPhone XS.

Is there a way to see, where all photos, especially hidden photos, are? I want to be able to see all photos, all photos in a specific album, and the correct count even if there are hidden photos there. E.g., even when I enable the Hidden Album in the settings, then I only have the choice to see the hidden photos there in the Hidden Album, but they are not shown anywhere else, not shown in their according albums.

My problem is: I had no time to note, so I took photos of some passwords and had hidden them in one or more albums over time. I don't now which albums.
I want to share photos of folders (or whole albums) with somebody, but I cannot see, if there are hidden photos. I tested, the counter does not increase for hidden photos in an album, and they are not shown in the album, even if you enable Hidden Album option in Settings. So, is there a way?

Thanks!

 

[NoBoMac]

Can use a Shortcut to give you the names of the albums hidden photos are in. There is an action to remove pictures from an album as well, but couldn't get that to work right now, so left as an exercise.

 

[gamma0]

Sorry, I don't quite get what you mean. I tried searching within photos for keywords, didn't work. That's not what you mean, guess

 

[NoBoMac]

You can create and run a Shortcut (see above) via Shortcuts app to help track down which albums. There is nothing in Photos other than unhiding the pictures and deleting them.

Or transcribe the passwords from the pictures to a note and then delete the hidden pictures.

In the future, can use the Notes app for that: take a picture and encrypt the note.

 

[iStorm]

There's no real easy way to do this. In addition to the above, another potential option that may or may not be feasible depending on how many photos are in your albums would be to:

1. Create a new temporary album.
2. Go into your hidden album, select all, and add them to the new temporary album.
3. Unhide all hidden photos.
4. Go into your other albums to see if there are any photos you don't want in there, and remove them.
5. Once done, go into the new temp album and hide everything again.
6. Delete temp album.

If you only have a handful of hidden photos, then you could probably get away with not doing the temp album. That's just there to contain all the photos to easily hide again, rather than having to hunt for them all.

 

[BigBlur]

Can use a Shortcut to give you the names of the albums hidden photos are in. There is an action to remove pictures from an album as well, but couldn't get that to work right now, so left as an exercise.

Cool idea, but it looks like this won't work after upgrading to iOS 16 though. I was going to tweak this and also add another filter to ask me for the album. (Basically a shortcut to "show me my hidden photos in this album".) However, the 'Is Hidden' filter is no longer an option in iOS 16...presumably because hidden photos can now be locked behind Face ID, and that would have been a way to bypass it.

Only thing I could find about it was this Reddit post. Darn, I got excited for a bit!

https://www.reddit.com/r/iOSBeta/comments/w1fq8r

 

[gamma0]

There's no real easy way to do this. In addition to the above, another potential option that may or may not be feasible depending on how many photos are in your albums would be to:

1. Create a new temporary album.
2. Go into your hidden album, select all, and add them to the new temporary album.
3. Unhide all hidden photos.
4. Go into your other albums to see if there are any photos you don't want in there, and remove them.
5. Once done, go into the new temp album and hide everything again.
6. Delete temp album.

If you only have a handful of hidden photos, then you could probably get away with doing the temp album. That's just there to contain them all rather than having to hunt for all the photos to hide again.

Thank you! That was a good advice.