As a hobby photographer, I tend to take multiple shots of the same scene so I can pick the best one later. The downside is that I have to triage hundreds of photos every week. Adobe Lightroom and other popular photo editing apps let you rate photos, which makes triaging your shots a breeze. It’s one of the reasons I still pay for Lightroom Classic.
While this works great for photos I take with my camera, it doesn’t work for my iPhone photos, since I don’t usually export them and they live in my iCloud library. That’s why I was excited when I found that the iOS 27 developer beta has added a hidden setting that brings a similar feature to the iPhone Photos app.
How to enable and use the star rating feature
In the first developer beta of iOS 27, this feature is turned off by default. To enable it, launch the Photos app and open the Collections tab. Now, tap the profile icon in the top-right corner, scroll down, and enable the toggle for “Show Rating Controls.”
After you enable this toggle, open any photo to see a star symbol with a drop-down menu in the top-right corner. Tap it to expand, then rate the photo from 1 to 5 stars.
You can also rate multiple photos at the same time. Simply select all the photos you want to rate with the same stars, tap the three-dot menu, and use the Rating option to rate them.
Honestly, this is a small feature, but it has already improved my photo triaging experience on the iPhone.
You’ve rated your photos, now what?
By now, you might be thinking, ” Yes, I have painstakingly rated my photos, but now what do I do?” Well, here comes the best part. You can filter your library using the number of stars you have assigned to your photos.
For example, if I only want to see the best photos that I have marked with five stars, I can do so. To filter photos, open the Library tab and tap the filter button in the top-right corner. You will see a Rating option. Tap it and select the rating you’d like to filter the results by.
Since I selected five stars, it’s showing me all the photos I have rated with five stars.
Why this small feature is a big deal for me
It might seem strange to get this excited about a star rating toggle, but for me, it solves a problem I have lived with for years. My iPhone library has always been a dumping ground of near-identical shots, and finding the keepers was a chore I kept putting off.
I also love that it brings my iPhone workflow closer to my Lightroom workflow. Now I can rate my best iPhone shots, filter them in seconds, and quickly find the ones worth editing or sharing. If it stays past beta, it will easily become one of my favorite small additions this year.