gfwetzel

Q: How to view face tags in a picture downloaded from iCloud photo library with OS X Photos

I recently had to wipe my Macbook Air drive and reinstall the OS and all apps (a time machine restore would not fix my problem).  I used Photos to download all my photos from iCloud photo library.  The pictures that I had tagged with faces no longer show the names of those faces with "View->Show Face Names" or in the information panel.

 

Yes, I know I can use a face tag to search for pictures with that tag, but unfortunately I don't remember the name of some of these people.  Before, I could just pull up a picture (e.g., because I knew the location or date/time of an event) and their names would display.  Now I don't know how to do that, or even if it's possible.  Any clues?

MacBook Air (13-inch Mid 2012), OS X El Capitan (10.11)

Posted on Aug 13, 2016 5:23 PM

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Q: How to view face tags in a picture downloaded from iCloud photo library with OS X Photos

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  • by LarryHN,

    LarryHN LarryHN Aug 13, 2016 5:26 PM in response to gfwetzel
    Level 10 (84,125 points)
    Photos for Mac
    Aug 13, 2016 5:26 PM in response to gfwetzel

    Yes that is the way it woks and the only solution is to search for the face tags and retag them

     

    this is one (or several) reasons that you need a local backup - ICPL is not a backup

     

    LN

  • by Rysz,

    Rysz Rysz Aug 13, 2016 5:30 PM in response to gfwetzel
    Level 7 (20,157 points)
    iTunes
    Aug 13, 2016 5:30 PM in response to gfwetzel

    iCloud Photo Library does not store face tags at present.

     

    Even though you could not restore your entire OS from Time Machine backup, can you at least restore the Photos Library file in your Pictures folder?

  • by gfwetzel,

    gfwetzel gfwetzel Aug 13, 2016 5:57 PM in response to Rysz
    Level 1 (5 points)
    Apple Watch
    Aug 13, 2016 5:57 PM in response to Rysz

    I tried that.  At one point during original troubleshooting, I restored from the Time Capsule and backed up the Photos Library file.  This restore also brought back the issue I was having with my Macbook, but I was able to copy files to an external drive.  When I copied the Photos Library file onto the clean installed Macbook, and opened Photos, it started uploading duplicates (that I now have to selectively delete) to iCloud Photo Library, so I stopped it and just downloaded the photos from iCloud.

     

    I thought perhaps I could erase all photo/video/album data on iCloud and just start over with the backup I had.  However, it doesn't appear possible to erase the iCloud data.  My searches indicate that I could turn off iCloud Photo Library on all my devices and wait 30+ days for the photo data to "time out", but that's not very desirable, either.

  • by gfwetzel,

    gfwetzel gfwetzel Aug 13, 2016 6:00 PM in response to LarryHN
    Level 1 (5 points)
    Apple Watch
    Aug 13, 2016 6:00 PM in response to LarryHN

    I can't search for face tags and retag the photos with faces whose names I no longer remember.  I have 20,000+ photos going back to 1991 (early ones scanned in from slides/negatives).  I did have a local backup, but that, too, was problematic (see response to next answer).