Photos v. 1.5 in El Capitan -- difficulty searching for images by file name, Photos seems to dupe name 2x

The top line is the Title

The second line is the File Name

The file name is occurring only once. The way it appears in the search is mysterious, but the file is just as it should be.

You can type anything you like, something descriptive, perhaps, in the line for the title. In my picture earlier, the file name is "IMG_3248.HEIC," and the title is "22 10 State Fair," because I took the picture at the Texas State Fair in October. You can sort an album by title, so by using counter numbers you can get the pictures in an order that may not be strictly chronological.

About appearing in the Finder: you (and we all, probably) have several images with the same file name. That can't work with Photos. Photos imports the images and stores them with unique file names, and it keeps a data base to relate its file names with ones you recognize. But if you use a "managed library" (meaning Photos keeps the pictures in it's own folder) then there is no connection to the Finder's files. Images could be in many different places in the finder, or not there at all, so "where file resides in the Finder," has no meaning. I agree that checking if all the images are loaded is a hassle. I usually try to sort both the Photos album and the Finder folder by date and go down the list.

Hi, TurksCap.

We'd have no way of knowing the original file names without the original photos being present as well. There's no way to verify if they've changed or if that's what they were originally named without comparing to the originals outside of the Photos application.

For more information on using Photos, check out this guide: Photos User Guide for Mac - Apple Support

Cheers.

TurksCap,

Are you seeing duplicate photos when you view the photo library?

You can search for the photo name in the Photos app. That way you can find duplicate photos. This explains how to do this:

1. In the Photos app  on your Mac, click the search field in the toolbar.

Tip: Press Command-F to quickly activate the search field.

2. Type the search text in the search field.

As you type, suggested searches appear below the search field. You can type multiple words separated by a space to search based on multiple criteria. For example, entering “California March” locates all photos taken in California in March.

3. Click an item in the suggested searches to see matching photos.

To display all your photos again after a search, click the Cancel button  in the search field.

This information is from Find photos by text, content, or date in Photos on Mac - Apple Support.

Take care.

This is weird. Does the file name show up correctly in the info window (Command-i when a picture is selected)? Like IMG_3248.HEIC in the image below? Or is this craziness confined to the Search query?

Once again, when you click on a picture and open the info window, what do you see? A screenshot of the info window would help.

I dont see a "Reveal in Finder"

The pictures that you see are not from the finder-- they are stored inside the Photos Library. (Unless you have unchecked "Copy Items to the Photos Library" in Photos>Preferences. This would indicate a whole host of new problems.)

Managed Library means that the images you give Photos are copied into the Photos' Library. The Library is a special type of folder called a Package. You can open the Package and look inside it, but there is grave danger in messing something up in there and confusing the data base, possibly mixing up information about multiple pictures. That's the dire warning that you quoted-- don't mess with the Photos Library Package in the Finder!

Since you have "Copy items to the Photos library" checked, you have a Managed Library. This is GOOD. Almost everybody wants that. The alternative is a Referenced Library, which means the images are kept outside the Library Package and are managed by you. But if those pictures are moved or altered with Finder without Photos knowing, things will get messed up. You might do this if you used Photos only for editing and not for keeping the pictures organized. Organizing pictures is really what Photos is about.

If you have duplicates because they got imported multiple times, then probably the only difference between them is which albums they're in. For me, I go to each album, select all, and add the name of the album as a keyword for all of them. Some have more than one album keyword, of course. If two duplicates have everything identical, then it doesn't matter which one you eliminate. But if imported and keyworded separately, then the keywords can tell you which you want to keep.