How to Rate Your Photos with Stars in iOS 27 (And Finally Organize Your Library)

iOS 27 adds 1–5 star photo ratings. Learn how to rate your shots and use ratings (not just Favorites) to organize a huge Photos library.

TIPS & TRICKS

8/19/20262 min read

How to Rate Your Photos with 1–5 Stars in iOS 27 ⭐️

Did you know that iOS 27 makes it even easier to organize your best photos? You can now give individual photos a rating from one to five stars, making it much easier to keep track of your favorite shots.

It’s especially handy if you take a lot of photos and want a quick way to separate the shots you like from the ones you really love.

Here’s how it works:

  1. Open the Photos app on your iPhone.

  2. Find the photo you want to rate.

  3. Touch and hold the photo until the quick-action menu appears.

  4. Tap Rating.

  5. Choose a rating from 1 to 5 stars.

  6. Your rating is saved automatically.

That’s it. ⭐️

Use ratings to clean up a huge Photos library

This is where I think the new rating system becomes really useful. Rather than only using Favorites, you can give your best photos higher star ratings and use those ratings to organize your collection.

For example, after a holiday or a day where you’ve taken hundreds of photos, you could quickly go through them and give your best shots four or five stars. This makes it much easier to separate your favorite photos from all the other images sitting in your library.

And importantly, you don’t have to delete anything while you’re sorting.

Why use ratings instead of Favorites?

The familiar Favorite button is still useful when you simply want to mark a photo you love. But ratings give you a little more control because you can rank your photos instead of only choosing between favorite and not favorite.

You could create your own simple system:

  • ⭐️ — Probably not a keeper

  • ⭐️⭐️ — Okay

  • ⭐️⭐️⭐️ — Good

  • ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️ — Really good

  • ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️ — One of your best shots

Of course, you can use the stars however you like. The important part is finding a system that works for you.

If your Photos library is anything like mine and filled with thousands of photos, this small iOS 27 addition can make sorting and finding your best shots a whole lot easier.

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