iOS has had a private photo picker for a few years now, where you can pick photo...

bee_rider · 2025-08-29T18:04:50 1756490690

Do apps have the option to not use the photo picker? I thought from the app’s point of view, the photos that iOS shows it are all the photos on the filesystem.

sefrost · 2025-08-29T17:45:57 1756489557

WhatsApp does appear to only have access to a subset of photos on my iPhone.

The UX is a little clunky because you have to “add” a new photo which it can then access, but I prefer the privacy of it.

signal11 · 2025-08-30T02:16:23 1756520183

The subset of photos thing was a relatively clunky addition in iOS 14. iOS 17 introduced a much better picker but devs have to opt into using it for now.

Signal[1] and a bunch of other apps do use the newer iOS 17 picker.

[1] https://ibb.co/KpkfrDMZ

ks2048 · 2025-08-29T18:58:02 1756493882

If you set the access to “Limited Access”, then that’s what the App has. It’s not a decision for WhatsApp to make - it’s in iOS.

signal11 · 2025-08-30T02:06:23 1756519583

“Limited access” is an older iOS feature from 2020, and different from the “private access” photo picker introduced with iOS 17[1].

[1] https://developer.apple.com/videos/play/wwdc2023/10053/?time...

Limited access isn’t great UX because it’s not reasonable for users to have to manage a list of photos for every app. The new one is much better, but unfortunately app devs have to opt into it for now.