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Organize photos

Last updated on 7 November 2024

Learn how to organize your photos in Lightroom.

Lightroom offers many ways to organize your photos. You can manage your photos as albums or stacks; or organize them using keywords, metadata, flags, and ratings. Easily find and filter photos in Lightroom desktop.

Tip:

New to Lightroom? See Lightroom Academy to learn more about how to Organize, Rate, & Find Images in Lightroom.

View photos

In the All Photos panel, you can quickly select the photos you want to view in the grid:

Recently Added
Recent Edits
By Date
By People (Select Adobe Lightroom > Preferences > General > Enable People View)
Connections
Deleted

View Albums in Lightroom

You can view and arrange albums in Lightroom using the Albums and Shared panels.

Album

You can view all your Lightroom albums by selecting the Albums panel. To create new albums or folders, select and select from Create Album, Create Smart album, and Create Folder. To sort your albums, select and choose from the menu.

Shared

View and organize all the photos and albums you have shared with others or vice versa. Select Shared to view:

Shared with You
Shared Albums
Shared Photos

Select to sort your albums and photos.

View photos in Lightroom

To specify how you want to display photos in the grid, choose one of the views from the bottom of the photo grid:

Photo Grid (): Displays photos as thumbnails with no borders or badges
Square Grid (): Displays photos as equal-sized thumbnails along with their flag status, sync status, and rating
Detail (): It lets you work with and edit individual images. Edit controls are active only in this view.

View photos on full screen

To view your album photos on full-screen, do the following:

Switch to Detail () view. You can enter the full-screen mode only from this view.
Press F key to enter the full-screen mode. Alternatively, choose View > Detail - Full Screen from the menu bar.
Lightroom hides all the panels and maximizes your photo to display on the full screen. While in this full-screen view, you can perform any of the following actions:
1. Cycle through your album photos by pressing Left or Right arrow keys.
2. Flag a photo as Pick or Rejected by pressing the Z or X keys, respectively.
3. Rate a photo by pressing the 0-5 number keys.
To leave the full-screen mode, press F or the Esc key.

Add your photos to an album

Open Lightroom on desktop, select + and then select Create Album.
Enter a name for the new album and select Create.
Select some photos from the grid and drag them to the album in the left pane.
To rename or delete an album, right-click the album's name and select the appropriate option.

Create Smart albums

Open Lightroom on desktop. Navigate to All Photos and apply a filter to view your images. From the filtered results, choose the desired pictures and select Create Smart album.
Alternatively, you can also select in the Albums panel to Create Smart albums.
Enter a Title, choose a Folder, and add a Rule or multiple Rules for your Smart Album for better organization and search.

Create Smart albums dialog box to specify information like Title and Rules.
Right-click the album name to Edit, Rename, or Delete the Smart album.
Additionally, you can save any search as a Smart album that dynamically and continuously updates itself with every additional information you add to the photos. Search for images using Keywords, People, or other filters and select Create Smart album.

Tip:

Smart albums will display album information like thumbnail previews and the number of images only when you open the album.

Create folders

Folders can contain albums or other folders.

In the Albums area in the left pane, click the + icon. Click Create Folder. Lightroom lists the folder in the Albums area.
Drag one or more albums under the folder.
If necessary, create subfolders and add albums to them.

Stack photos

In Lightroom on desktop, select All Photos and then select the photos you want to stack.
Right-click the selection and choose Group Into Stack. Alternatively, select Stacks > Group Into Stacks from the Edit menu.
To dissolve a photo stack, right-click the stack and then select Ungroup Stack.

Add keywords to photos

Select one or more photos for which you want to add a keyword.
Select View > Keywords. Alternatively, select at the lower-right of the screen.
In the Keywords panel, assign one or more keywords to the photos.

Rate and flag photos

Select one or more photos you want to rate and flag.
Right-click the selection and assign a rating/flag to the photo using the Set Rating or Set Flag options.

Note:

In the Square Grid and Detail views, you can also rate and flag photos directly in the grid area. In the Square Grid, mouse-over the photo to view the rating and flag options.

Search photos

To search your photos, you can use any of the facets listed below. In the Search bar, type a facet name followed by a colon ':'.

keyword:
camera:
lens:
location:
rating:
flag:
flash:
orientation:
iso:

type:
f-stop:
shutter speed:
edited:
extension:
album:
people:
focal length:
depth map:

Filter photos

Select to bring up the filter options:

Ratings: Choose a star rating to view photos rated higher than or equal to the specified star rating. For example, you can select three stars to view photos rated three stars or higher.
Flags: Choose a flagged, rejected, or unflagged option to filter photos based on their flag status.
Type: Select to show either photos or videos.
Keyword: Choose a keyword from the drop-down list to show photos tagged with that keyword.
Camera: Select a camera model from the drop-down list to filter photos by the camera used to shoot them.
Location: Choose a location from the drop-down list to filter photos based on their location tag.
Sync Status: Choose an option from the drop-down list to filter photos based on their sync status—Syncing, Synced and Backed Up, Original Stored Locally, or Synced From Lightroom Classic.
People: Choose an option from the drop-down list to filter photos based on the people in them.

Sort photos

Select to view the sorting options available in Lightroom - Capture Date, Import Date, Modified Date, File Name, or Star Rating.

Change photo capture time

Open Lightroom on desktop and select the photo where you want to change the capture time.
Select at the lower-right corner and then select beside Captured.
If you've selected a single photo, the Edit Date & Time displays your photo's current date and time. Change the date and time to a desired value.

Edit Date & Time dialog | Changing the capture time of a single photo.

If you've selected a group of photos, the Shift Date Range dialog displays the current date range of your selection. The new date and time that you specify is applied to the photo with the most recent capture date in the group. Other selected photos automatically shift based on this new date.
Select Change.

View photo metadata

Select a photo in the grid and then select . Lightroom displays the Info panel, which lists the photo's metadata and Sync Status.

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