Separate work and personal photos on iPhone — for real.
PhotoPots keeps work photos out of your personal life. Sort existing photos into a pot and the original leaves your Camera Roll. Or capture straight into a pot with the in-app camera — it never enters your library at all.
Free · 25 sorts a week · iPhone, iPad & Mac
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Job Sites
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Client Work
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Family
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Personal
Your Camera Roll was never meant to hold two lives
If you work with photos, mixing them with personal ones costs you more than tidiness.
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Memories resurfaces everything
iPhone Memories and slideshows pull from your whole library. That means a drywall tear-out or a wound-dressing photo can pop up in the "year in review" you play for your kids. Your Camera Roll doesn't know the difference between a moment and a deliverable — but you do.
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Shared albums leak context
Share a holiday album with family and your work shots are still sitting one swipe away in the same library. iCloud sharing, AirDrop suggestions, and "For You" recommendations all treat every photo as fair game.
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Showing photos gets awkward
Hand your phone to a client to show the finished kitchen and they're a thumb-swipe from your weekend. Or hand it to your kid to see a puppy picture and they're a swipe from a customer invoice. Privacy shouldn't depend on nobody swiping.
Albums and the Hidden folder don't actually separate anything
The built-in fixes feel like separation, but they aren't. An album in the Photos app is just a view — sort a work photo into a "Jobs" album and the original still lives in your library. It still appears in Memories, in search, in shared suggestions, and in the "Recents" view everyone scrolls through.
The Hidden folder is closer, but it's built for hiding, not organizing. One long list, no categories, no color, no way to tell a plumbing invoice from a permit photo at a glance — and anything in it is still technically in the same library, one toggle away.
Real separation means the photo is gone from your personal library. That's exactly what PhotoPots does differently.
Two ways PhotoPots keeps work and life apart
Every photo in a pot is out of your Camera Roll — not hidden, not bookmarked, removed.
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Sort: the original leaves your library
Pick photos already in your Camera Roll and sort them into a pot. PhotoPots moves them — the original is removed from your library, not just tucked behind a filter. Work photos stop showing up in Memories, shared albums, and family scroll-throughs. Crop or edit inside the pot and GPS and timestamp metadata stay intact.
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Capture: never enters your library
Open the PhotoPots camera, pick a pot, shoot. The photo lands straight in that pot and never touches your Camera Roll — nothing to clean up later. It's the fastest way to keep work photos separate on iPhone when you're on site and moving fast.
- Custom pot names and colors — one glance tells work from life
- OCR search finds text inside receipts, signs, and whiteboards
- Batch screenshot triage clears screenshots in minutes
- iCloud sync keeps pots identical on iPhone, iPad, and Mac
- One-tap share to Messages, Mail, Slack, or anywhere else
How to separate your photos in five minutes
No account, no import wizard. Here's the whole setup.
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Download PhotoPots and create your first pot
Name it something obvious — "Job Sites", "Listings", "Patients" — and give it a color. Make a second pot for personal stuff if you want, or leave personal photos in the Camera Roll where they belong.
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Sort the backlog
Scroll your Camera Roll inside PhotoPots and tap the work shots. Each sort moves the original out of your library into the pot. The free plan gives you 25 sorts a week — enough to chip away at the backlog, or go Pro for unlimited sorting and clear it in one sitting.
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Switch your habit to capture-to-pot
From now on, take work photos with the PhotoPots camera. They land directly in the pot with GPS metadata preserved, and your Camera Roll stays personal by default.
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Triage your screenshots
Run the batch screenshot tool to sweep receipts, whiteboard photos, and job details out of your library in bulk — sorted or deleted, your call.
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Share from the pot, not the library
When a client, office, or insurer needs a photo, share it straight from the pot to Messages, Mail, or any app. Your personal photos never enter the conversation.
Built for people who communicate with photos
If your camera is a work tool, separation isn't a nice-to-have.
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Contractors
Before-and-after shots, damage documentation, material receipts. Capture them on site with the PhotoPots camera and they're filed by the time you're back in the truck — GPS intact for the invoice, and completely absent from the family album.
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Real estate agents
One pot per listing. Walk-through photos, staging shots, and seller notes stay organized per property, searchable by OCR ("find the photo with the water heater label"), and shareable to clients without exposing anything personal.
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Inspectors & field techs
Compliance photos need timestamps and locations — PhotoPots preserves both, even after cropping. Sync over iCloud and the day's evidence is waiting on your Mac when you sit down to write the report.
Albums vs. Hidden folder vs. PhotoPots
What "separate" actually gets you with each option.
| What you need | Camera Roll albums | Hidden folder | PhotoPots |
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| Original removed from library | No — it's a view | No — still in library | Yes — moved out |
| Kept out of Memories & slideshows | No | Mostly | Yes |
| Organized categories with names & colors | Yes | No — one list | Yes — pots |
| Capture that skips the Camera Roll | No | No | Yes — in-app camera |
| GPS metadata preserved after edits | Edits can strip it | No | Yes |
| Syncs to iPad & Mac | Yes | Yes | Yes — via iCloud |
| Searchable text inside photos (OCR) | Yes | No | Yes |
Separating work photos, answered
Do sorted photos disappear from my Camera Roll?
Yes — that's the point. When you sort a photo into a pot, PhotoPots moves the original out of your photo library. It isn't hidden in another album; it's genuinely gone from the Camera Roll, Memories, and shared albums, and it lives only inside the pot.
What's the difference between a pot and a regular photo album?
An album in the Photos app is a view — the original photo stays in your library, so it still shows up in Memories, searches, and shared albums. A pot is a separate container. Sorting into a pot removes the photo from your library entirely, and photos captured into a pot never enter it at all.
Can I capture work photos without them ever touching my Camera Roll?
Yes. PhotoPots has a built-in camera that saves each shot directly into the pot you choose. The photo never enters your Camera Roll, so there's nothing to clean up afterwards. GPS metadata is preserved, which matters for job-site and property documentation.
Will my pots sync to my iPad and Mac?
Yes. PhotoPots syncs your pots over iCloud, so the same work photos are waiting for you on iPhone, iPad, and Mac — sorted on one device, available on all of them.