iOS 16: How to Control When iPhone Camera Shots Are Saved to Your iCloud Shared Photo Library - MacRumors
Skip to Content

iOS 16: How to Control When iPhone Camera Shots Are Saved to Your iCloud Shared Photo Library

by

In iOS 16, it's possible to create a shared iCloud Photo Library that allows up to five other friends with Apple products to contribute photos to.

iOS 16 Photos and Camera Guide Feature
This means if you are all at the same event, you can have your iPhone camera automatically upload new shots to the same shared library for you to enjoy and look back on together.

In the Camera app, you can tap a new icon that looks like two people to swap between automatic uploading to the shared library and your personal library. Using Bluetooth, your iPhone can even detect when you're in the same location as other participants in the library and set the Camera app to automatically add photos and videos to the shared library.

camera
If you don't like the Sharing from Camera app option for whatever reason, you can manually disable it, and if you change your mind, you can re-enable it anytime, so long as you still have a Shared ‌iCloud Photo Library‌ active. The following steps show you how it's done on an iPhone running iOS 16.

  1. Launch the Settings app on your iPhone.
  2. Scroll down and tap Photos.
  3. Under "Library," tap Shared Library.
  4. Tap Sharing From Camera.
  5. Toggle the switch on or off next to Sharing from Camera.

settings

If you choose to enable Sharing from Camera, you can use the same menu of options to set the Camera to Share Automatically or Share Manually, with the latter option allowing you to make use of the new upload button in the Camera app, as outlined above.

Popular Stories

Four iPhone 18 Pro Colors Mock Feature

iPhone 18 Pro: Pre-Orders and Release Date

Sunday August 16, 2026 8:24 pm PDT by
Apple has yet to reveal when the iPhone 18 Pro and iPhone Ultra will be announced and released, but the dates usually follow a familiar pattern. As usual, the event is expected to take place in the first half of September. Labor Day falls on September 7 this year. The last time the holiday was on that day was in 2020, but the iPhone event that year was delayed until October due to the...
apple camera airpods

Apple's Camera-Equipped AirPods Confirmed: See Them in Action

Monday August 17, 2026 6:21 pm PDT by
Apple is working on camera-equipped AirPods that appear to be nearly ready to launch, based on a video MacRumors found in the macOS Tahoe 26.7 release candidate. In a short demo, a man holds a book up so the camera in the AirPods can see the title. "With Visual Intelligence, your world becomes savable. See something you like? Just ask me to save it for later," says the voiceover text. Here ...
iPhone 18 Pro Dark Cherry Feature

iPhone 18 Pro and iPhone Ultra: New Details Leak as Apple Event Nears

Monday August 17, 2026 11:09 am PDT by
"iPhone Ultra" supply will be very limited when the foldable device is first released later this year, according to Fixed Focus Digital, a known leaker on the Chinese social media platform Weibo. The account also claimed that the iPhone 18 Pro's A20 Pro chip will be up to 18% faster and up to 30% more power efficient compared to the iPhone 17 Pro's A19 Pro chip. The A20 Pro chip will be the...