List all photo albums in iOS

Question

I need to get all photo albums on iPhone.

I know I can start an image picker to let the user selects an image from it. But I need to develop my own image browser.

All the code I found work with image picker or they already know album name.

I need first to list all photo albums names then the user will select one of them, then I will display images in this album.

All these steps will be done in customized layouts.

Can I list all photo albums?

You can see the answer from here: http://stackoverflow.com/questions/32169185/how-to-fetch-all-images-from-custom-photo-album-swift — fatihyildizhan, Apr 19 '16 at 08:57
i need to get albums first not images inside the albums. In my case i don't know the album name — Ahmed M. Abed, Apr 19 '16 at 08:58
Photos Framework will get it done for you. You can fetch albums, photos etc without using traditional methods. Quite essential for building your own photo picker — NSNoob, Apr 19 '16 at 09:04

score 12 · Answer 1 · edited Apr 16 '20 at 14:51

Simple way to list all albums with image counts.

class AlbumModel {
    let name:String
    let count:Int
    let collection:PHAssetCollection
    init(name:String, count:Int, collection:PHAssetCollection) {
      self.name = name
      self.count = count
      self.collection = collection
    }
  }

func listAlbums() {
    var album:[AlbumModel] = [AlbumModel]()

    let options = PHFetchOptions()
    let userAlbums = PHAssetCollection.fetchAssetCollections(with: .album, subtype: .any, options: options)
    userAlbums.enumerateObjects{ (object: AnyObject!, count: Int, stop: UnsafeMutablePointer) in
        if object is PHAssetCollection {
            let obj:PHAssetCollection = object as! PHAssetCollection

            let fetchOptions = PHFetchOptions()
            fetchOptions.sortDescriptors = [NSSortDescriptor(key: "creationDate", ascending: false)]
            fetchOptions.predicate = NSPredicate(format: "mediaType = %d", PHAssetMediaType.image.rawValue)

            let newAlbum = AlbumModel(name: obj.localizedTitle!, count: obj.estimatedAssetCount, collection:obj)
            album.append(newAlbum)
        }
    }

    for item in album {
        print(item)
    }
}

great it works, but it returns only one album. Sean's answer returns all albums. check it here http://stackoverflow.com/a/36713200/1361120 — Ahmed M. Abed, Apr 19 '16 at 10:12
@mohammad-farrahi thanks for the edit request. I just approved. — fatihyildizhan, Apr 16 '20 at 14:53

score 9 · Accepted Answer · edited Jan 04 '19 at 09:12

I use this to get just a few albums but you can get more:

private func setupPhotos() {
    let fetchOptions = PHFetchOptions()
    let smartAlbums = PHAssetCollection.fetchAssetCollections(with: .smartAlbum, subtype: .any, options: fetchOptions)
    let topLevelUserCollections = PHCollectionList.fetchTopLevelUserCollections(with: fetchOptions)
    let allAlbums = [topLevelUserCollections, smartAlbums]

    allAlbums.enumerateObjects {(assetCollection, index, stop) in

        if #available(iOS 9.0, *) {
            fetchOptions.fetchLimit = 1
        }

        let assets = PHAsset.fetchAssets(in: assetCollection, options: fetchOptions)
        if let _ = assets.firstObject {
            let assetObject = MYSpecialAssetContainerStruct(asset: assets)
            self.myDataArray.append(assetObject)
        }
   }
   self.myDataArray.sortInPlace {(a, b) in
       return a.asset.localizedTitle < b.asset.localizedTitle
   }
   tableView.reloadData()
}

EDIT: This will get you the PHAssetCollections of the albums, then I put them in cells which have this method for getting the latest image thumbnail from the album.

private func downloadAndSetImage(asset: MYSpecialAssetContainerStruct) {
    guard asset.thumbnail == nil else {
        albumImage.image = asset.thumbnail
        return
    }

    let imageRequestOptions = PHImageRequestOptions()
    imageRequestOptions.isNetworkAccessAllowed = false
    imageRequestOptions.isSynchronous = true
    imageRequestOptions.deliveryMode = .highQualityFormat

    PHImageManager.default().requestImage(
        for: asset.asset,
        targetSize: CGSize(width: 200, height: 200),
        contentMode: .aspectFit,
        options: imageRequestOptions,
        resultHandler: {(img, info) in
            asset.thumbnail = img
            self.albumImage.image = asset.thumbnail
        }
    )
}

@SeanLintern88 : Its not giving Pics that are added via iTunes, what should i do?? — Abhishek Thapliyal, Aug 30 '17 at 15:51
code doesn't run in Swift 4. Value of type 'NSObject' has no member 'enumerateObjectsUsingBlock'. Error for "result" variable — AnLT, Apr 10 '18 at 07:51
The code isnt provided as a copy/paste solution, it is a guide on understanding the flow of requesting collections/albums — Sean Lintern, Apr 11 '18 at 09:16

List all photo albums in iOS

2 Answers2