Utiful is the photo filing system Apple forgot to build. As featured in The Wall Street Journal.
Are you frustrated that the Apple Photos app mixes everything—and won't let you create real order?
Unlike Apple Photos and other photo apps, Utiful lets you:
• Move photos out of your camera roll and outside of the main gallery—finally!
• Sort your photos into separate categories—work, hobbies, personal, and more.
• Keep utility photos like documents, receipts, and IDs out of your main gallery.
• Keep your main gallery clean and tidy.
How Utiful Works:
• Use Utiful to move photos out of your camera roll and save them to Utiful folders.
• The photos are removed from the camera roll but kept in your Utiful folders.
• Your Utiful folders are automatically backed up to your iCloud Backup.
• The Utiful sync feature lets you access your folders across all your iOS devices.
Utiful’s further unique features include:
• Save photos to Utiful folders straight from the Photos app.
• Take photos with the folder camera that save directly to the folder.
• Manually rearrange photos in a folder—just the way you like.
• Protect your Utiful folders with a passcode lock (Touch ID and Face ID supported).
• Import/export photo folders from/to computer, cloud storage, external hard drives, also wirelessly via AirDrop.
Who Uses Utiful:
• Professionals & freelancers keeping work photos separate from personal ones
• Contractors & service providers managing before/after project pictures
• Doctors & lawyers organizing reference photos, evidence, and case documentation
• Hobbyists & creatives storing inspiration, artwork, and craft ideas
• Everyday users organizing screenshots, receipts, IDs, and notes by category as well as reference pictures such as haircuts, clothes, fitness tracking, songs identified with Shazam etc.
Quick Start Guide:
1. Open Utiful, tap "Add Photos", select photos from the camera roll and tap "Move".
2. Or, while in the Photos app, select photos, tap Share and choose "Save to Utiful".
All photo, video, GIF, and RAW formats are supported. Original image quality & metadata are preserved.
The full feature list, User’s Manual, and tutorial videos are available anytime in the app’s settings.
Download Utiful today and take control of your photo library!
Subscription & Free Trial
New users get a free trial before the subscription begins. After the free trial, your subscription automatically renews annually unless canceled at least 24 hours before the billing period ends. You can manage your subscription in Settings > Apple ID > Subscriptions.
Terms of Use: utifulapp.com/terms.html
Privacy Policy: utifulapp.com/privacy.html
Ever use your phones camera to capture images of things that weren’t really “PHOTOS”? Classroom or meeting whiteboards? Info from posters or other ads? A quick shot of a business card? Or maybe it’s the name and number of a potential new “date” jotted down on a cocktail napkin? (Yeah...I’ve been there too - don’t judge!) You name it. Our phone cameras are great tools for capturing information quickly and accurately. But who wants all that STUFF in your camera roll with all of your pictures? Maybe it’s the photographer in me, but that really drove me crazy. Not anymore though. Utiful is a really cool app that lets me store and organize these images in a folder structure that I create so they are easily located when I need to refer to them....but they are OUT OF MY CAMERA ROLL when I want to view my photo library!!! Two problems are immediately solved - the images are organized and easy to locate AND, my camera roll is once again a place for my photographs - not all the other STUFF I may shoot. It works great on iPad and iPhone. Seamlessly backs up and syncs in the cloud! I’m not one to write a lot of reviews, but I stumbled over this almost by accident one day while searching for something else in the App Store. I’d never heard of it - and likely you haven’t either. But it works extremely well and I could not be happier that I found it! I simply can not recommend this fantastic little app strongly enough! A true “diamond in the rough”!
Developer Response
Dear rh6194, thank you SO MUCH for this AWESOME feedback! You got standing ovations from our team!! It is feedback like yours that motivates us the most to keep up the good work and try harder! If you happen to have any improvement suggestions, please don't hesitate to share them with us anytime through Settings > Feedback -- we're here for you and our backlog is driven by user feedback! Kind regards, The Utiful Support Team
It’s not fair!
Lolly50
I’ve had Utiful for a long time now. I’ve messaged with Utiful reps back and forth about the product. They have been super kind and friendly every time. I found this app originally after searching for just this. I love the Utiful app. Why one star, then? I purchased the full app. Something I don’t do too often. I think there should actually be a law against a company allowing you to purchase an app and then decide to charge a monthly fee. That’s not right at all. I have invested hours and hours filing my photos. Seriously, you should grandfather in your original customers. I have told so many people about this app who have downloaded it. I can’t imagine paying for anything and having someone come and say Hey, I know you paid for that but in order to keep that you now have to pay me every month. I can’t express how upset I am. As I said, It’s not fair. I have to now find another way to keep my photos as the app won’t allow me to do anything! It’s dishonest.
Developer Response
Dear Lolly50, thank you for your 1-star rating and for your feedback. We are totally sorry that we have disappointed you in such a way. Apps made available through Apple's App Store are licensed, not sold. The license is granted by us under Apple's Standard License Agreement. We had to switch to subscription-based pricing in order to keep up the service you deserve. You can continue using the app even without subscribing, the thing that will be limited is that you won't be able to add new photos to it. You can still access your existing folders and photos, share and export them as you like, sync them to your other iOS devices and so on. If you need more information on this and on our development plans, visit the "Manage subscriptions" chapter of the User's Manual (Settings > User's Manual) or contact us directly (Settings > Feedback). The Utiful Support Team
Misrepresentation of what it actually does. Ended up being useless
Amadariaga
. The app misrepresents what it actually does in 2 ways. It advertises that it allows you to move photos out of the iPhone camera roll and allow you to organize them so that you know which photos have been sorted and which not. What they don’t tell you is that you are moving them not out of the camera roll but out of the native iPhone app ENTIRELY and into a whole new database . The reality is that it just creates and entirely separate database for you to organize these photos which you are then supposed to DELETE what’s in your camera roll. I could have overlooked this misrepresentation except for tue fact that anytime I am using any sort of function where I need to retrieve photos from somewhere,I can no longer do so because there isn’t a way to directly pull from this other database which means you have to go to the app, take out the photos and then put them back into your camera roll. Which completely defeats the entire purposes . The app literature is not transparent about the fact that very few apps are set up to work together with this app to be able to pull photos directly from it without having to do a bunch of extra work. I found a list of apps that work with it and none of them apply to me. This is not what I paid for and am respectfully requesting to berefunded
Developer Response
Dear Amadariaga, thank you for your 2-stars rating and for your feedback. You are totally right about how our app operates and please accept our excuses if you felt any part of the app presentation misleading. This is of course not out intention and we will review the app presentation asap to check for potential misinterpretation. As for being able to access the app from other apps. As you probably found out, there is a list in our User's Manual of how you can access the app from other apps. If you are using other apps, please do contact us at support@utifulapp.com to let us know which, and we will review them and the access to our app asap. In fact, our app is totally open for access from other apps, however still many apps do not consider that there can be more than one source of photos on the device and only allow to access photos from the camera roll, which is pity indeed. As soon as you contact us as mentioned above, we will also gladly inform you about the refund process, if this is what you'd like. The Utiful Support Team
Indispensable! Photo Manager Magnificence.
Roguewarer
I had been DESPERATE for a solution to my insane (5000+) pictures on my devices. I’m a professional handyman & take tons of client-related work images. But I’m a photographer & person, too! lol I simply couldn’t manage the god-forsaken Camera Roll, which — for whatever reason — can categorize, but won’t remove images from the internal timeline. Enter Utiful. <roaring applause!> I use this app nearly Every. Single. Day!! And it keeps improving with every update. It’s NOT “perfect” (yet), and yes, it’s a bit pricey. BUTBUTBUT!!! It’s stable & reliable and the ONLY intelligent photo manager I’ve tried (omg...and I’ve tried a TON of them) that works intuitively and like iPhoto SHOULD. I still have ALL. of my photos, but now, instead of shots of my ceiling fan install intermixed with shots of my dog, I can not only CATEGORIZE/& SUB-CATEGORIZE photos, but also REMOVE them entirely from the Camera Roll. Kudos & thanks, Pavel! You hit this outta the park. I’m forever grateful! This is a brilliant app. Highly recommended!
Developer Response
Dear Roguewarer, thank you SO much for your amazing feedback and for the 5-stars rating! As you say, our app is not yet perfect but we keep improving it day after day, with the same passion from day one on! We believe that photo organization can be easy and we want to make this possible for our users! If you happen to have improvement suggestions, do not hesitate to share them with us through Settings - Feedback, we'll be glad to take them onto our backlog! Kind regards, The Utiful Support Team
+ Fixes a bug with the visualization of such LivePhotos that are missing the video part. These are now visualized as normal still pictures.
Version 7.12.10
The developer, Utiful Software GmbH, indicated that the app’s privacy practices may include handling of data as described below. For more information, see the developer’s privacy policy .
Data Not Linked to You
The following data may be collected but it is not linked to your identity:
Purchases
Location
Identifiers
Usage Data
Diagnostics
Privacy practices may vary, for example, based on the features you use or your age. Learn More
Accessibility
The developer has not yet indicated which accessibility features this app supports. Learn More