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I have never used my Photos app to properly sort my pictures into albums, and I’m going to make an educated guess and say that this is true for most of us. We take a bunch of photos at an event or with friends, share the ones we love, and let the others take up space on our devices. When it comes time to find a photo, I’m always searching through the All Photos album, scanning for the one I need. But there is a better way! I found Slidebox because I was looking for an app that would let me easily create albums, sort photos into those albums, and delete the photos I don’t need to keep. To my absolute delight, Slidebox allows me to do this super easily by using swiping gestures to quickly sort through photos like you sort through potential connections on Tinder. Learn more on why I love this app and what it does below.
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Slidebox (Free)
What It Does
It takes two seconds to set up Slidebox and you’re ready to start using gestures and swipes to get organized. When you first set up the app, it will show you the basic instructions on the screen. I’ve listed the basic gestures in bullet points and added some extra info to each one below:
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Swipe Left/Right to navigate.
If you don’t want to sort a photo into an album or delete it, you can simply swipe left to move on to the next photo. Or, you may want to look through multiple similar photos by swiping left and right before deciding which to keep.
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Swipe up to Trash
When you swipe up and move a photo to trash, it isn’t automatically deleted. That means if you make a mistake, there is no need to panic. You can tap on the trash can in the upper right corner of the screen to either restore any photos you accidentally moved to trash or permanently delete the photos. When you permanently delete the photos, they will be removed from your Photos app (and therefore iCloud library) as well.
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Tap Album to Sort
At the bottom of the Unsorted tab, you’ll see your albums. You can add new albums or add albums that already exist in your Photos app. Once you’ve added an album, it will appear at the bottom. That way, you can swipe through the albums and easily tap on one to add the current photo to that album.
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Long Press to Share
If you want to share a photo that’s Unsorted in the Slidebox app, you can simply tap and hold it. The Share menu will pop up. From there, you can share it via messages, email, or social media. You can also copy, print, save to Files, turn it into an Apple Watch Face, and more.
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Tap Photo to Zoom & More
Want to view a photo full screen? Quick tap the photo and it will zoom. You can also use two fingers to pinch to zoom in and out. When you tap on a photo and make it fullscreen, you’ll see a star at the bottom. Tap the star to add the photo to your Favorites. If the star is yellow, it’s in your Favorites. In which case, you would tap the star again to remove it from Favorites.
Why We Love It
Don’t worry if the information above feels like too much all at once. The app is really great about keeping the instructions super simple, and if you need a refresher at any time, tap the question mark in the upper left corner of the Unsorted tab in the app. Once you get the first three gestures down, you can manage, organize, and delete thousands of photos more quickly than ever before. It’s good to note that changes you make to your photos in this app will be mimicked in the Photos app; so if you create a new album and sort a hundred photos into it, you’ll see that album in the Photos app with all the photos you added.
We see gestures used in lots of apps, but I would argue that Slidebox makes the best use of them. I have 6000 photos to sort through but it doesn’t feel like an overwhelming task because of how easily I’m able to sort a photo into an album, delete it, or skip it. The app has four tabs for all of your photo management needs: Unsorted, Favorites, Timeline, and Albums. Unsorted is the page you’re on the most, because it’s where you swipe to organize. Favorites are the photos you’ve starred in the Slidebox app or loved (done by tapping the heart icon) in your Photos app. Timeline is all of your photos in chronological order, and Albums are all of the albums you’ve added to Slidebox, whether new or ones added from the Photos app.
Once you give Slidebox a try, you’ll never want to organize your photos any other way. The main features of the app are completely free. If you want to remove ads, organize videos, pin an album to the top, plus get access to all new features, a one-time purchase of $2.99 will give you premium status and help support the developers of such a useful app.
Do you have a favorite app you want me to feature? Email me at appsaturday@iphonelife.com!
