Learn how to turn off automatic slideshows in Apple’s built-in Photos app for a cleaner appearance on iPhone and iPad.
Many sections in the Photos app display a rotating carousel of featured images and videos at the top to highlight content and quickly start a slideshow. It’s aesthetically pleasing, but some folks don’t like this, and if that’s you, there are two easy ways to turn it off.
Turn off Large Key Photo or Movie Preview in Apple Photos
- Open the Photos app on your iPhone or iPad running iOS 26 or iPadOS 26.
- Go to the Collections tab and enter an album or section under the Media Types or Utilities headings.
- Tap the three-line menu icon, followed by View Options, and uncheck Large Key Photo.
If your iPhone or iPad is on iOS 18, follow these steps instead:
- Open an album or section within the Media Types or Utilities sections of the Apple Photos app.
- A slideshow at the top previews the media in the selected album or section. Tap the dual-arrow button in the bottom-left corner, choose View Options from the menu, and untick Movie Preview.
This will remove the slideshow played at the top of the square photo grid.
The Movie Preview setting is available in many Photos collections, including Favorites, Screenshots, Videos, Selfies, Portraits, Receipts, QR Codes, Illustrations, Recently Saved, Recently Viewed, Documents, Albums, and Shared Albums.
However, the Hidden, Recently Deleted, Duplicates, and Imports collections lack this control as they don’t have the top slideshow.
The only exception is the People & Pets collection, which lacks this option even though it has the top slideshow. But don’t worry; you can instead use a trick mentioned right ahead.
Enable Reduce Motion just for the Photos app
You can leverage two accessibility features in iOS and iPadOS — Reduce Motion and Per-App Settings — to turn off movie previews for all Photos collections in one fell swoop, including People & Pets. The downside is that the Reduce Motion feature will also disable all slick animations in the Photos app.
- Open the Settings app on your iPhone or iPad and tap Accessibility.
- Scroll to the bottom and select Per-App Settings.
- Tap Add App and select Photos from the list.
- Tap the added Photos app.
- Select Reduce Motion and turn it on.
Switch to the Photos app and go inside an album or a collection like People & Pets, and there should be no automatic slideshow at the top. Force quit and reopen the Photos app if you still see a top section.
Furthermore, if you hit the menu icon and choose View Options, you’ll notice that the Large Key Photo or Movie Preview option is absent from the menu.
Again, you’ll see simpler animations throughout Photos when opening albums, switching views, and so forth because that’s what Reduce Motion does.
Also, check out: 41 quick tips to make the most of the Photos app on your iPhone