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Smart Albums in Photos is not reliably find the correct Capture Date for all my photos. Anything with a date earlier than about 2001, it just looses the plot. I've checked, double checked and twice EXIF data and is all correct. Smart Albums were created sequentially by copying and editing required capture date criteria. After 2001 it just stopped finding photos in my Library.
Anyone got a fix for this?
MacBook, macOS 10.13
The smart album works for me on both photos taken before 2001 and after 2001.
Have you tried repairing the library by opening it with the Option+Command keys held down?
Also as a test launch Photos with the Option key held down and create a new, test library. Import some Photos taken before and after 2001 and test to see if the same problem persists. Does it? This tells us if the problem is limited to your current library or is more wide spread. If it works OK then test your original library again.
The smart album works for me on both photos taken before 2001 and after 2001.
Have you tried repairing the library by opening it with the Option+Command keys held down?
Also as a test launch Photos with the Option key held down and create a new, test library. Import some Photos taken before and after 2001 and test to see if the same problem persists. Does it? This tells us if the problem is limited to your current library or is more wide spread. If it works OK then test your original library again.
What system and Photos versions are you running?
Where is your library located? If on an external drive how is the drive formatted and connected to your Mac?
Have you installed and run any "cleaning", "optimizing", "speed-up", anti-virus or VPN apps on your Mac?
The Smart Album capture date search works for me.
At one point you say "earlier than about 2001," and later you say "After 2001 it just stopped." I'm guessing that you mean dates before 2001 are not found correctly-- is that right?
What kind of pictures do you have before 2001? That's close to the dawn of digital photography, and before smart phones. Mine before that are mostly scanned slides and prints, so the date of the file isn't the date the picture was actually taken. The digital images I have from before 2001 certainly work, and the dates I've entered for scans also work.
In the metadata for pictures there are several dates. Capture date is not the same as file date, so Exif dates may not tell you what Photos uses. Smart Albums should use the date that shows in the Info Window. Do those dates agree with the Smart Album search?
Sorry for the confusing text. Yes photos taken before 2001, 2000, 1999, etc (as recorded in the EXIF Capture Date) are not being detected/found by the Smart Albums I have written. Photos taken more recently than 2001, 2002, 2003, etc. using the same Smart Album format are found correctly. The file types are a mix of jpeg and RAW (.CR2).
I'm running a late 2013 27-inch iMac on macOS Catalina Ver. 10.15.7 and Photos ver.5.0. As to any other applications interfering with Photos functionality, I don't see the logic in that photos taken before 2001 are correctly found and placed by the Smart Album search criteria I established. But for clarity the only other application running in the background in 'Clean My Mac'.
The Library is on a External 4TB SATA LaCie Drive, formatted in Mac OS Extended (Journaled), connected via Thunderbolt port.
You wrote "Anything with a date earlier than about 2001, it just looses the plot. I've checked, double checked and twice EXIF data and is all correct".
But what is the capture date shown for these photos in the Info in Photos?
And how bad is the error? Are the dates off by years or hours? You should check the dates assigned by Photos to the photos. Photos may have used the date of the import rather than the exif tags, the exif tags have bee stripped during the the transfer to your Mac, for example, if you used a sharing methode, that is removing exif tags for privacy reasons, like shared album.
Thank you, tried repairing Library, but that made no improvement. Created a smaller Test Library and everything works as advertised! Tried changing Capture Date in some Test Library photos and the Smart Albums picked this up instantly.
The solution would seem to be to import in smaller batches. Trying to get Photos to swallow 43,621 Photos and 1,443 Videos in one session was obviously too much. Computer environmental glitches have seemingly corrupted the import at some stage. Thanks again.
Photos Smart Album Capture Date Failure
