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Poor keyword search results - what am I doing wrong?

I have been using the keyword "art" to tag photos of artwork that my son brings home from school. When I type "art" into the search box, it comes up with 1,558 photos... which was my first red flag that something wasn't right. Half of the results have no "art" keyword, no "art" in the filename, etc. I can't figure out why they're there.


What am I missing?

MacBook Pro 13", macOS 10.15

Posted on Feb 16, 2020 9:25 AM

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Question marked as Top-ranking reply

Posted on Feb 16, 2020 9:52 AM

What version of Photos are you running.


That has been a know shortcoming of previous Photos versions.


To work around create a Smart Album with the criteria:


Keyword is XXXXX


See if that will give you a more accurate finding.


However, with Photos 5.0 I get the same results plugging my XXXX into the search field as I get with a Smart Album.


4 replies
Question marked as Top-ranking reply

Feb 16, 2020 9:52 AM in response to Danielle Perugini

What version of Photos are you running.


That has been a know shortcoming of previous Photos versions.


To work around create a Smart Album with the criteria:


Keyword is XXXXX


See if that will give you a more accurate finding.


However, with Photos 5.0 I get the same results plugging my XXXX into the search field as I get with a Smart Album.


Feb 16, 2020 10:21 AM in response to Danielle Perugini

I have been using the keyword "art" to tag photos of artwork that my son brings home from school. When I type "art" into the search box, it comes up with 1,558 photos...

The search field in Photos 5 does no longer allow you to search specifically for a keyword. It will turn up everything that is related to "art" in some sense, if you search for for "Art", any text containing "Art", or photos in the category "Arts & Entertainment", which will give surprising results.


In Photos 5.0 you can get more specific search results, if you use the filter instead of the search field. Just add the keyword "Art" to the Quick Group in the Keyword Manager. Then you can filter any view or album to turn up just the items with the keyword "Art" by setting the "Showing Only" filter to "Art".



Poor keyword search results - what am I doing wrong?

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