New Photo Arrangement

[Misty43]

Now that I have added photos to certain rooms and spaces, they come up in a strange block order when guests click on them. It used to be one stream, now it's categorized which in theory would be great, but it's forcing rooms like the 2nd living room to pop up first instead of better-featured rooms. I just want to go back to the old original photostream but no matter what I do I can't get it to revert. If I remove rooms and spaces then it still shows all my photos in blocks called "other", "other 1 ", "other 2".. anyone else having this problem? Love some help! My listing looks horrible this way, thanks!

[Julie4898]

I also reached out to Airbnb a year ago about this issue with no resolution. I noticed a brand new listing today that didn't have this problem and thought surely I could change it back. But no. I removed all my rooms and spaces and then the listing showed as a studio rather than 3 Bed, 2 Bath. The positive was that when I reloaded the photos, they went back up in a much better order--Living Room 1 first, Living Room 2, Bedroom 1, Bedroom 2, Etc. I can at least live with it that way (it previously have Living Room 2 first) but I would MUCH prefer guests to be able to scroll through them all in the order I uploaded them. This really needs to be fixed! Oh--and at a minimum, it'd be nice to be able to select the order in which the photos appear under each category so, for instance, I could select which of my 6 exterior photos appears first rather than a random side porch.

[Misty43]

You got it! That's about as good as we can do. One of my listings randomly reverted and has none of this going on. The photos are streamlined but I still can show what rooms and spaces I have. No unassigned photos or "other" etc

But you are right, if you remove a room then add back in you can see where it pops up in your stream at least. Like I have a pool at one place and I'd like it to show first but it always wants to put it last! Those spaces I can't figure out how to change at all but the bedrooms and living rooms I was successful at manipulating like you did.

[Julie4898]

I spoke with Airbnb yesterday. The representative confirmed that once you've created the rooms and spaces, you cannot revert to the old photo stream or control the order of the photos. She recommended giving feedback to Airbnb via this link: airbnb.com/help/feedback Sounded like the more people who say something, the more likely they will look into it and fix it.

[Pocono-Rental-Management0]

Hi Misty43 - wondering if you figured out the photo arrangement issue? If so, when you have a moment, could you share the solution? Thank you! 

[Misty43]

I haven't! And I have continuously played around with it.

I attempted:

1. removing all rooms; then it looks like you have no rooms and all your photos are labeled other, other1, other2, other3, shared other, etc

2. just tried removing photos but leaving the room descriptions. still your photos will all be listed as other, other1, shared other, etc and be individual so not grouped just looks like a million unassigned photos.

3. also the order can not be changed. i attempted adding only one room at a time and saving it thinking that would put it first, but it didn't. it always wants living room 1st. i have 2 living rooms so the best i could do was leave off that i have a 2nd living room and combine it in with living room 1 photos or allow it to be an "other" space.

4. shared other will always be last in your configuration, you have to name everything to not have unassigned photos just hanging at the end.

5. for the bedroom order i did notice i can manipulate it thru tedious adding and taking away. example: it puts the bedrooms out of order so the kids room #2 first then the 3rd bedroom then master then the 4th. of course i wanted the master to show up first. so i had to go into rooms and spaces, edit rooms and subtract one bedroom from you bedroom total. So making it 3 instead of 4. then i went back in added the 4th again. i assigned the photos and saved. when i refreshed the bedrooms were in a different order, #1, #3, #2, #4.

Does any of this help? haha not really!!! I can't believe it's been a year of this with no change. And booking is down for us all so every little thing helps like having control over your photo order and rooms! If I make any progress I will update here 🙂

[Carly198]

I have a solution. It's not completely fixed but at least the photos are in the order I WANT now. 

1. Go to Manage Listing

2. Go to Listing

3. Go to Property and Rooms

4. Edit Rooms and Spaces

5. Open each space and remove the assigned photos (make sure all rooms and spaces have no photos assigned)

6. Save and check your listing

It will either all automatically group in your original order under "Shared Other" or you may have one more step. 

If it groups into "Shared Other" and "Additional Photos" you have to take a few more steps to get the "Additional Photos" category off. 

1. Under Edit Rooms and Spaces select any room 

2. Assign photos to that room but ONLY assign the photos that were under "Additional Photos"

3. Save that section

4. Now immediately delete the photos from that same section

5. Check your listing and they should all be under "Shared Other" in the order you originally put them in

It's some weird glitch. If you didn't assign the photos to a room originally, their system automatically stores them as "Additional." Once you assign them to any room it takes them out of that category and puts them with everything else in "Shared Other."

I'm still trying to figure out how to get the "Shared Other" off and just go back to a gallery, would love to hear your solutions if you figure it out first!

I very much dislike this update......

[William162]

I've also reached out (as a Superhost with 10 years in) to an Airbnb specialist on the same exact issue of creating a property overview; he just keeps sending links that nibble at the issue or summarize it without any troubleshooting dimension.  He won't admit there is a problem just apologize that I can't solve it. 

[Misty43]

I reached out to Airbnb so many times about it. They really had no answers and said it's the new platform and even if I removed my "rooms and spaces" it didn't help. I have 3 listings and I noticed that my oldest one that I haven't updated in a long time doesn't have the weird arrangement so I leave it alone so I don't disrupt anything. My other 2 listings are newer and were both doing the odd arrangement and throwing things out of order, it looked terrible!

2 things I figured out that might help:

The order of the "rooms/spaces" you add is how they pop up... I had added my bathrooms last and I noticed that made them show up 1st. As if the first things you add are at the bottom.

Also when I updated my photos and deleted a whole bunch it finally kicked out the whole arrangement and now the photos are back in the old format with no separation by rooms etc. but this only worked on one listing. It's so annoying but seems like after messing with it you can sometimes throw a glitch in the system and get what you want. Hope this helped even a little!!!! @Richard2506 @Eva-Lena0 @John6398 

[John6398]

I just posted my first listing and I'm having the same issue.  The rooms are showing up in random order in the photos, Bedroom 3 first and then random rooms as you scroll through.  Very frustrating!

[Eva-Lena0]

Yes its like throwing dice. A new random order is created every time I save the room settings, even when no change to the settings is being saved. So the way I am dealing with it is that I save changes (without changing anything) until it becomes a random order that is less bad.

[Richard2506]

I have the same issue and it's really frustrating. I wish I hadn't "updated" to the new version. It shows my loft first and then guest bathrooms before the master. it's so dumb.

[Eva-Lena0]

Hello everyone!

I'm having this problem as well. I'm new at this and haven't posted any listing yet.

I'm now waiting for an answer to this request that I sent to the procedure labeled "Give feedback" :

"Please instruct me how to predict the order in which “Rooms and spaces” gets displayed in the “Property overview”.

When using “Preview listing”, the “Property overview” is not displaying the “Rooms and spaces” in any practical or predictable order. Every time some change is made to some assignment of photos in “Rooms and spaces”, the numbered “Patio” and “Exterior” gets displayed in some unpredictable random order and the random order is also changing every time. And also the unassigned photos are sometimes automatically assigned to “Additional” and sometimes assigned to some categories called “Other 1”, “Other 2” etc. that somehow gets automatically created, and these are NOT possible to create, chose or delete by editing “Rooms and spaces”. Greetings / Eva-Lena "

By trial and error I've so far figured out that the order of the photos in each of the 'Rooms and spaces' is determined by their order in the 'Photos' section. And also that photos that turns up in categories called 'Other' are photos that I've excluded from 'Rooms and spaces'. But the rule for how the 'Rooms and spaces' gets ordered in the 'Property overview' is still a mystery to me. Most annoying is that all photos gets randomly reordered and renumbered in the 'photo roll' every time that the 'Rooms and spaces' gets randomly reordered in the 'Property overview'. - Perhaps it may be ruled by what chronological or alphabetical order photo-files are uploaded in?  ...or by something else?

Here is the new random order that surprised me today:

I hope for an instruction soon, so that I can the listing published. Greetings / Eva-Lena

[Mark116]

@Misty43 @Ann72 

Ours isn't the new new unattractive display of everything by room, it is somewhere in between, when I preview the listing the photos appear in a weird and random collage format where some are larger than others.  

The site for me today is slow as molasses so I imagine I am soon to be treated to a new new new format change to further reduce functionality and complicate the job of hosting.

[Misty43]

@Mark116 I've been on with 4 different Airbnb ambassadors and no one had an answer. They just kept directing me to the link about how to arrange by room. I said I just want the old way of arranging, how do I go back? They said sorry we have already told you what to do so we are closing your ticket now. So Im stuck with the ugly arrangement 😕

[Sarah977]

@Misty43  @Danny-And-Nickey0 Well, at least we're all in the same leaky boat🙂

I don't understand what the Airbnb programmers thought they were doing. Airbnb is always so into fussing and changing their graphic presentations- it's one thing they seem to care about, that it looks slick- that this makes no sense at all and looks so amateurish.

Bedroom 3 shows first, then bedroom 1, then bedroom 2. ??? Say what? Then a bunch of outdoor shots, then the bathroom or something. Every listing I've looked at lately has this senseless non-order. 

Hosts who try to make their photo galleries flow well generally did it as a walk-through that was logical. You don't stick outdoor shots randomly in the midst of indoor shots. 

They really need  to fix this.

[Danny-And-Nickey0]

Hello im having the same issue, is there any way to escalate?

[Misty43]

That is so strange! It always seems to be some thing in regards to photos. I know a lot of posts were requesting a categorized home view of their photos. But this leaves us no options to control which category displays first and the order of the photos in each category cannot be chosen by us as well. Sometimes your first picture is a  bathroom shot, so unflattering! I noticed on a mobile device you can click the right arrow on the pictures and it will be in the correct order I have arranged them but if you choose to view all photos it will show you these strange categories it's very boxy and the titles are living room one, living room two, kitchen one, kitchen two and it just looks horrible. This is my busy season and I really need my photos to be exceptional I've reached out to Airbnb but they haven't offered any support on this so far, I'll keep you guys posted

[Ann72]

Hi @Misty43, we were just talking about this the other day https://community.withairbnb.com/t5/Help/Grouping-Photographs-by-Category/m-p/1526374#M335987/  It's a mystery.  The new arrangement is showing up in some places but not others.  Let us know if you find anything out!

[Eastside-Villas0]

Im having the same problem. I have 5 listings. One listing does the overview, but another does not. I cant figure out why. Did you?

[Misty43]

Will do!