An intermittent bug in iOS 18 is causing frustration for iPhone users, with many reporting errors when attempting to save edits in the Photos app. Affected users see the message: “There was an error saving this photo. Please try again later.”
This forces users to discard changes, with only the cancel button working. The issue has been frequently reported by owners of the iPhone 16 series but also affects older models. I’ve personally seen this error several times using an iPhone 15 Pro Max.
It’s unclear exactly what causes the bug, or whether it’s tied to a specific type of image. What we know is that the bug appears to corrupt occasional photos, preventing edits like crops and filters from being saved.
Once a photo has this problem, it can’t be edited on any device – although many users (including me) have found temporary workarounds, such as duplicating the photo from the share sheet and editing the copy instead.
Complaints about the issue have persisted since iOS 18’s launch in September and continue even in the latest iOS 18.2 beta. It doesn’t affect every user, or even every photo, but seems widespread enough that a fix feels overdue. Apple is reportedly aware of the problem and working on a fix. Hopefully it will be sorted by the time iOS 18.2 releases to the public later this year, if not sooner.