Photos 5 to Photos 5.3: A work-Around for the changed Smart Album Rule - Person is not ...

by: léonie

Last modified: Apr 5, 2020 10:55 PM

1 890 Last modified Apr 5, 2020 10:55 PM

Smart albums can be used to search for photos containing a certain person or groups of persons. But the behaviour of smart albums based on named people has changed with Catalina.

This applies to Photos 5 on macOS 10.15.0 to 10.15.3. The problem has been fixed in macOS 10.15.4. Thankyou, Apple!

Photos 5 on macOS 10.15.0 to 10.15.3 only:

This smart album will be working similar in all versions of Photos:

File > New Smart Album

It will show all photos showing Romeo and Juliet together.

But what, if we are looking for all photos, that are not containing a certain person, for example, to avoid sending the photo of an ex to the previous partner? This is now no longer as easy as before, because the smart album rule "Person is not" has changed the semantics.

Up to Photos 4 on macOS 10.14 Mojave, the smart rule "Person is not Romeo" would find all photos, that do not contain Romeo. This could include many photos with no person at all.
In Photos 5.0 on macOS 10.15 Catalina the smart rule "Person is not Romeo" will find all photos showing some person, that is not named "Romeo". All photos found will be photos with people in them. And many photos will be showing showing Romeo, if there is a second person in the photo, together with Romeo. Match All: "Person is Juliet" and "Person is not Romeo" will include all photos of Romeo and Juliet together, because Juliet is not Romeo. For example, on Catalina:

Even weirder: If we combine contradictory rules:

Match all: "Person is Romeo" and "Person is not Romeo", the smart album would be empty in Photos 4.0, but in Photos 5.0 it is showing all photos of Romeo together with someone else.

If we want the same behaviour in Photos 5.0 as on Photos 4.0, we can use a standard album with the face of the unwanted person and replace the "Person is not..." rule by an "Album is not ..." rule.

Open the Person album of the person we want to exclude. Click "Show More" and select all photos in this album with ⌘A.
Then create a new album from the selection with ⌘N. Name it like the Person you want to exclude.
Now create a smart album with the rule "Album is not ...". This album will omit all photos with the skipped person.

Before you delete the temporary album, remove all photos from this album. "Album is not ..." or "Album is ..." are not working well on Catalina, if we delete an album, that is not empty.

Photos 5 on macOS 10.15.4 :

The problem above has been fixed.

A smart album with the contradictory rule Match all: "Person is Romeo" and "Person is not romeo" is now empty, as it should be:

A smart album with the rule Match all: "Person is Romeo" and "Person is not Juliett" is now only showing photos of Romeo without Juliett.