sylharrell

Q: How do I turn off faces in Photos?

How do I turn off faces in Photos?

iMac (27-inch Mid 2010)

Posted on Sep 27, 2015 5:28 AM

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Q: How do I turn off faces in Photos?

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  • by LarryHN,

    LarryHN LarryHN Sep 27, 2015 5:30 AM in response to sylharrell
    Level 10 (84,200 points)
    Photos for Mac
    Sep 27, 2015 5:30 AM in response to sylharrell

    View menu ==> hide faces

     

    LN

  • by nateau,

    nateau nateau Jun 14, 2016 12:29 AM in response to LarryHN
    Level 1 (4 points)
    Jun 14, 2016 12:29 AM in response to LarryHN

    Still seems to be showing?

    faces.png

     

     

    (menu on top of a 'home page/dashboard' view of Photos showing Faces still there with faces from my photos). Similarly:

    ~/Pictures/Photos Library.photoslibrary> find . -iname \*faces\* -exec ls -ld {} \;

    -rw-r--r--@ 1 apple  apple  1146880 22 Mar 14:20 ./Database/apdb/Faces.db

    -rw-r--r--@ 1 apple  apple  0 22 Mar 14:20 ./Database/apdb/Faces.db-wal

    drwxr-xr-x  6 apple  apple  204 27 Apr  2015 ./Database/Faces

    lrwxr-xr-x@ 1 apple  apple  13 27 Apr  2015 ./Database/Faces.db -> apdb/Faces.db

    drwxr-xr-x  4 apple  apple  136 14 Jun 17:09 ./private/com.apple.Photos/faces

     

    Why is there a 1.1MB file for something I've turned off?

  • by léonie,

    léonie léonie Jun 14, 2016 1:48 AM in response to sylharrell
    Level 10 (105,736 points)
    iLife
    Jun 14, 2016 1:48 AM in response to sylharrell

    The face detection is automatic in Photos and cannot be disabled. The face detection process will always be running and create a faces database and faces thumbnails.  You can only prevent the faces from showing.

     

    Don't delete the databases in the library. Photos will just recreate them and waste processing time. Try, if deleting all unnamed faces thumbnails from the bottom of the Faces album will free some storage.

  • by nateau,

    nateau nateau Jun 14, 2016 3:43 AM in response to léonie
    Level 1 (4 points)
    Jun 14, 2016 3:43 AM in response to léonie

    Thanks, that's really good. Do you know what happens if you make the database a read-only file? (so Photos can't create/extend it)

  • by léonie,

    léonie léonie Jun 14, 2016 4:07 AM in response to nateau
    Level 10 (105,736 points)
    iLife
    Jun 14, 2016 4:07 AM in response to nateau

    Photos will not open the library at all, if it is read-only.

     

    But you could use the Power  Photos application to browse the Photos library. it does not write to the Photos library. Try the free trial version.

  • by LarryHN,

    LarryHN LarryHN Jun 14, 2016 6:23 AM in response to nateau
    Level 10 (84,200 points)
    Photos for Mac
    Jun 14, 2016 6:23 AM in response to nateau

    nateau wrote:

     

    Thanks, that's really good. Do you know what happens if you make the database a read-only file? (so Photos can't create/extend it)

     

    Then of course you simply will not be able to use Photos at all - to do anything that database must be fully accessible by Photos

     

    LN

  • by Ziatron,

    Ziatron Ziatron Jun 14, 2016 11:06 AM in response to sylharrell
    Level 4 (3,924 points)
    Apple Watch
    Jun 14, 2016 11:06 AM in response to sylharrell

    Strongly suggest you leave feedback here.  Apple does read all feedback and they do add features if enough people request them.

     

    http://www.apple.com/feedback/photos.html

  • by léonie,

    léonie léonie Jun 14, 2016 11:25 AM in response to Ziatron
    Level 10 (105,736 points)
    iLife
    Jun 14, 2016 11:25 AM in response to Ziatron

    I don't have much hope that user requests to disable Faces will help in the near future.  The next operating system to be released in autumn is making heavy use of the Faces feature.  Essential new features of Photos, like the Memories,  are built on top of the Faces album, see: this link  macOS Preview - Apple

     

    Apple cannot afford to disable the Faces support without making major new features obsolete. But send feedback nevertheless to let Apple know.

  • by Ziatron,

    Ziatron Ziatron Jun 14, 2016 1:14 PM in response to léonie
    Level 4 (3,924 points)
    Apple Watch
    Jun 14, 2016 1:14 PM in response to léonie

    Faces feature.  Essential new features of Photos, like the Memories,  are built on top of the Faces album, see: this link  macOS Preview - Apple

     

    I've heard about the new emphasis on Siri.  So far, I find Siri to be nothing other than a toy.  I try to use it periodically on my iPhone 6s,  97.48% of the time the results are irrelevant and utterly useless.  I'm a native English speaker with a Midwest accent.  Perhaps they found a way to improve it.

     

    Hard to imagine being in an office with a bunch of Mac users all yakking away at their computers.

  • by léonie,

    léonie léonie Jun 14, 2016 1:42 PM in response to Ziatron
    Level 10 (105,736 points)
    iLife
    Jun 14, 2016 1:42 PM in response to Ziatron

    There are not many occasions when Siri is useful.

    when speakable items first came out on the early Macintoshs, I tried to use it during lectures instead of a remote control to advance slides and open documents, but it was a disaster. Any of my students could control my Mac this way by simply shouting "Shut down" or similar and the lecture was over.

     

    During yesterday's Apple event Siri has been praised as a way for multi processing -  we can ask Siri to do tasks in the background while we continue working in a full screen application. I prefer smaller windows, where I can see several application windows open at the same time, so taht is no selling point for me.