Feature Request: Separate Views for Personal and Shared Albums

[fallow monolith]

Hey ente team,

Quick feedback on the album sharing feature. When someone shares an album with me, like recently a family member shared one with over 5000 photos, these shared photos get mixed up with my own in the main view. It gets a bit cluttered. Could we have an option to separate shared albums from personal ones? Something like the "Shared" tab in Google Photos, where shared albums are accessed distinctly. This would really help in keeping things organized and make navigating through personal and shared content smoother.

[undone sigil]

if you archive the album, it won't show in your main feed but you can still access it in the albums view 👍

[fallow monolith]

Thanks for the suggestion about archiving the album to remove it from the main feed. However, this solution doesn't quite fit my needs. I actively contribute to the shared album, and archiving it would mean my own added photos would also disappear from my main view. I'm looking for a way to keep the shared album accessible and separate without affecting the visibility of the photos I personally add to it. The goal is to maintain a clear distinction between shared content and my own uploads, while still contributing to the shared album. Any other ideas or potential updates to address this would be great!

[undone sigil]

so I believe if you have an album you upload your camera photos to ("Mikkel's Phone Photos", or whatever), photos from there would still appear in your main feed. You can add the photos to the album you have archived and I think get what you wanted?

[fallow monolith]

I appreciate your suggestion, but let me clarify a bit more to ensure we're on the same page. The issue isn't about where my camera photos are stored or how to archive albums. It's about the integration of shared album photos with my personal photos in the main view.

Here's a more concrete example: Suppose I go on a vacation with my family and create a shared album for us all to contribute our photos. I add my photos to this shared album. Now, while it's important for me to have my own photos in the main view (because they are my personal memories), there's no need for the photos contributed by other family members to mix with mine in the main view.

In essence, my own photos should appear in the main view as usual, but the photos from the shared album (added by others) shouldn't clutter my personal photo stream. This separation is something Google Photos does well, and I was hoping for a similar functionality in the app. This way, we can have a clearer organization: personal photos in the main view, and shared album photos accessible but not mixed in.

Hope this clarifies my earlier points!

As a web designer and someone deeply invested in UX, I believe there’s a more intuitive way to handle shared albums. From my perspective, the current approach, including the use of the 'archived' feature, might not be very clear or well-known to many users.

In my experience, a significant number of people are unaware of what 'archiving' does or how to effectively use it. A more user-friendly solution could be to emulate the Google Photos model. In their system, personal photos remain in the main view, while shared album photos are accessible but kept separate, reducing clutter and confusion. This not only enhances the user experience but also makes the app more accessible and easier to navigate, particularly for users who may not be as tech-savvy.

Implementing a more straightforward separation of personal and shared content could greatly improve the overall usability of the app.

[undone sigil]

I agree that it seems people aren't quite aware of what archiving does. As a counterexample, I have my wife's camera upload folder shared with me (and mine with her) so our feeds are a mixture of both our photos, which works great for what I want. I think that's what archiving is intended to solve: I could archive the shared folder and hide it from the main view if I choose.

[undone sigil]

I think in this example, if you have an album that is not archived (if all the photos come from your phone's camera, for example) and you add (not move) the photos into the shared, archived vacation album, shouldn't just your photos still show on your home feed?

[raven path]

As per current implementation, if a file is part of any archived or hidden album, we don’t show it on home timeline even if the underlying file is present in another non archived album