I know that when the Photos app isn't in use and the computer is plugged in, photos should be scanning the library for faces. I have left the computer on countless nights with both the photos app open but idle and the photos app completely closed. None have produced a result.
Is there a way to "ask" photos to scan the library for people?
Thanks in advance!
MacBook Air 13″, macOS 10.15
Photos is scanning faces only once, right after you import them to the library. You cannot force a new faces scan.
What is the status line shown below the People album? Does the main People view still show the message "0 Photos scanned"? Or has the message vanished and you are seeing only a message about the scanning below the faces albums for certain people?
If Photos is stuck on "0 Photos Scanned" below the People album for a small photo library, try if restarting the Mac and restarting Photos will help. Then scan takes a very long time. For my library with 50000 photos and videos it took two weeks to complete. if Photos never gest past "0 Photos Scanned" the Photos Library may not be on a compatible volume or you are having media items in your library that cannot be scanned, for example videos in a format that can no longer be processed by Photos 5.0 after the upgrade to Catalina.
Once the scan has finished and the "xxx Photos Scanned" message has vanished from the main People view, you may still be seeing the message below the albums of certain people with only one named face. This message below selected album is misleading. It has nothing to do with an incomplete faces scan. It is indicating that there is only one photo in the album of the photo and you have to confirm additional faces for this person or merge albums, so Photos will have more named faces and learn, what the person looks like.
The People album will not be showing you all newly detected faces, unless you add them there. It will initially only show a few faces, the faces of the people it has recognised in many photos as the same person.
How are you checking, if Photos has been detecting all faces?
To see, if Photos has scanned the photos for faces, do not look into the People album. Enable the option to show the face names and look at the photos with people in them.
If you are seeing circles around some of the faces, Photos has scanned them for faces.
Photos may not have added them to the People album. Photos will not clutter up the People album with each and every face. It is up to you to decide, which People you want to see there and add them there. Once the ".. photos scanned" message has vanished from the main People album, start naming the people as described here:
Find and identify photos of people using Photos on Mac - Apple Support
This way you can add additional people to the People album.
Photos is scanning faces only once, right after you import them to the library. You cannot force a new faces scan.
What is the status line shown below the People album? Does the main People view still show the message "0 Photos scanned"? Or has the message vanished and you are seeing only a message about the scanning below the faces albums for certain people?
If Photos is stuck on "0 Photos Scanned" below the People album for a small photo library, try if restarting the Mac and restarting Photos will help. Then scan takes a very long time. For my library with 50000 photos and videos it took two weeks to complete. if Photos never gest past "0 Photos Scanned" the Photos Library may not be on a compatible volume or you are having media items in your library that cannot be scanned, for example videos in a format that can no longer be processed by Photos 5.0 after the upgrade to Catalina.
Once the scan has finished and the "xxx Photos Scanned" message has vanished from the main People view, you may still be seeing the message below the albums of certain people with only one named face. This message below selected album is misleading. It has nothing to do with an incomplete faces scan. It is indicating that there is only one photo in the album of the photo and you have to confirm additional faces for this person or merge albums, so Photos will have more named faces and learn, what the person looks like.
The People album will not be showing you all newly detected faces, unless you add them there. It will initially only show a few faces, the faces of the people it has recognised in many photos as the same person.
How are you checking, if Photos has been detecting all faces?
To see, if Photos has scanned the photos for faces, do not look into the People album. Enable the option to show the face names and look at the photos with people in them.
If you are seeing circles around some of the faces, Photos has scanned them for faces.
Photos may not have added them to the People album. Photos will not clutter up the People album with each and every face. It is up to you to decide, which People you want to see there and add them there. Once the ".. photos scanned" message has vanished from the main People album, start naming the people as described here:
Find and identify photos of people using Photos on Mac - Apple Support
This way you can add additional people to the People album.
Added: I made a test and created two small test libraries in Photo, each with the same 19 images. One library has been referenced, one library managed.
For both the libraries the scanning for faces took roughly two hours. I kept Photos running, but using my main Photos library, not the test libraries. So the libraries have been scanned in the background while working wit a different library. in both libraries I could open the People album, after I tagged one face manually from the Info of a photo.
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Photos not auto scanning for people
