Ongoing iOS 18 Bug Prevents Photo Edits From Being Saved

There is an ongoing but infrequent Photos bug that some iPhone users have been experiencing since upgrading to iOS 18. The issue occurs when attempting to save edits on an image, with users seeing the following message: "There was an error saving this photo. Please try again later."

iphone 16 pro rear cameras
As the message suggests, edits are not able to be saved, and hitting "Cancel" and discarding changes is the only way to get out of the editing interface.

A lot of the complaints about the problem have been from users who have an iPhone 16 model, but it also appears to be impacting some older iPhones as well. We've run into this bug several times at MacRumors, and it seems to be impacting every version of ‌iOS 18‌ to date.

Reports about the bug started in September, and have continued since then. Most recently, several beta testers running iOS 18.2 have reported seeing the popup. It is worth noting that this is an error that some people ran into before ‌iOS 18‌, but it appears to be much more frequent now.

It's not clear what's causing the problem, and it does not seem to impact all users or even every photo. It could be linked to Live Photos, or it could be an issue with iCloud Photos. Some users have all photos from a specific day bugged, indicating a problem with photo capture or saving.

There is no complete fix, but duplicating a broken image with a "still photo" allows the edits to be saved, but it removes Live Photo and Photographic Styles. Apple is aware of the issue and is working on a fix.

Related Roundups: iOS 18, iPadOS 18
Related Forums: iOS 18, iPadOS 18

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Top Rated Comments

sw1tcher Avatar
11 months ago
And this is why I continue to stick with my OS upgrade schedule where I do not upgrade to a new OS version until the x.4 or x.5 version is out.
Score: 27 Votes (Like | Disagree)
HobeSoundDarryl Avatar
11 months ago
wait for .4 or .5 (approx. WWDC time) is the new wait for .2 or .3 from the good old days. I miss "just works" Apple.
Score: 26 Votes (Like | Disagree)
7thson Avatar
11 months ago
This doesn’t surprise me at all. Random albums don’t show up in the share sheet either. The Photos app overhaul is hands down my biggest gripe about iOS18. It feels like they changed it for change sake and now we get to beta test it until it works properly.
Score: 11 Votes (Like | Disagree)
doboy Avatar
11 months ago
Why am I not surprised. Apple really needs to shape up.
Score: 10 Votes (Like | Disagree)
ThomasJL Avatar
11 months ago
Typical Tim Cook. He cares more about maximizing profits for shareholders instead of providing customers products with a similar level of user-friendliness as before he was CEO.
Score: 9 Votes (Like | Disagree)
demwun Avatar
10 months ago
I feel like that "Apple feeling" that Jobs built up in the minds and hearts of the consumer has been completely undone.
They've changed minimalism, simplicity and efficiency into something utterly boring and clumsy..
Score: 8 Votes (Like | Disagree)