How to make a collage on iPhone

How to make a collage on iPhone: what we measured

We ran the same photos through each way to make a collage on iPhone on November 5, 2026, on an iPhone 17 Pro simulator running iOS 26.5: three vertical and three horizontal 12-megapixel HEIC photos (3024 × 4032 and 4032 × 3024). Then we opened each saved file and compared its pixels with the originals.

Shortcuts, In a Grid

This page, Best fit

Does the iPhone have a built-in collage maker?

Not in Photos. Select several photos in your Library and open the ⋯ menu: iOS 26.5 offers Slideshow, Favorite, Delete, Copy, Duplicate, Hide, Add to Album, Adjust Date & Time and Adjust Location. None of these makes a collage.

The closest built-in tool is the Shortcuts app, which can combine images.

How to make a photo grid with Shortcuts

1. Open Shortcuts and tap +.
2. Add Select Photos, tap its arrow and turn on Select Multiple.
3. Add Combine Images and change Horizontally to In a Grid.
4. Add Save to Photo Album.
5. Tap the play button, choose your photos and tap the check mark.

Video tutorials often use a ready-made Photo Grid shortcut from the Gallery tab. We built ours from Apple’s actions so every setting is visible: the action offers Horizontally, Vertically or In a Grid, plus one number for Spacing.

In a Grid turned all six photos into 3024 × 3024 squares. Each square matched a centered crop of the original, so each photo lost 25% of its picture. The result is large, at 9072 × 6048 pixels and 9.0 MB.

Horizontally kept three mixed photos whole, at their own pixel size, lined up along the top. The horizontal photo is shorter than the vertical ones, so a white strip sits under it and takes up 10% of the image.

Why this collage on iPhone keeps every photo whole

Best fit gives each photo a frame in its own shape. In our run the frames came out at 3:4 and 4:3, the same as the photos, and the six photos filled 91.5% of the 3000 × 3000 canvas. The rest is the spacing and margin, which you can change under Frames.

Best fit can make one photo much smaller than the others: the smallest frame in our run was 288 × 384 pixels. Tap Shuffle for a new arrangement, or open Layout and pick Classic grid with Keep all photos whole to get equal cells.

Your photos stay on the iPhone. The iOS picker says so itself: under Private Access to Photos, it explains that Safari can only access the items you select. This page opens them in the browser and sends nothing to a server.

Using Google Photos instead

If you already have the Google Photos app, select up to 6 photos, tap Create, then Collage. Google lists iOS 18 or later and app version 7.64 or later for its current collage editor. Source: Google Photos Help, read November 5, 2026.

The best way to make a collage on iPhone

• Mixed vertical and horizontal photos, or you want words and frames: this page.
• A quick grid where square crops are fine: Shortcuts, In a Grid.
• Up to 6 photos and Google Photos is already installed: Google Photos.

After you make a collage on iPhone

• Save Image puts it in Photos. Download JPG puts it in Files, in the Downloads folder.
• For a Story or a lock screen, tap Story 9:16 or Phone wallpaper above the canvas. The Instagram Story guide has the safe-area numbers.
• For a bigger file, open Size and format in the download window and choose 4096 pixels.
• Safari keeps your draft on this iPhone, so you can close the page and carry on later.