Photos App on Mac not analyzing faces

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Level 1

6 points

Photos App on Mac not analyzing faces

So here's the problem, i have an external hard drive where i have imported all of my pictures from my iPhone (there's more than 9000 of them) in a dedicated photo library, so it's well organized with all of the metadata (location, camera info, date...) the only problem i have is that for some reason the facial recognition feature isn't working and it states that the app will begin analyzing the photos when i'm not using the app and Mac is connected to a power source, but the thing is that i've tried everything, leaving the mac connected to a power source and leaving the app open doesen't do anything, leaving the mac connected to a power source and closing the app doesen't do the trick either (after a while the HDD stops spinning, so it's definitely not doing a thing), i'm at a loss, because facial recognition is really helful.

I've inserted a picture, it's in italian, but it basically states that mac will start analyzing the photos when i'im not using the app an the computer is connected to a power source

MacBook Air 13″, macOS 12.6

Posted on Aug 29, 2023 1:35 AM

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Answer 1

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léonie

Level 10

195,151 points

Aug 29, 2023 5:24 AM in response to just_fra

Are you keeping the external drive connected at all times, when you are signed into your user account?

Is the external drive correctly formatted (either MacOS Extended (Journaled)) or APFS? Also, the drive needs a wired connection, the Photos Library must not been a network share. And the external drive must not be used for Time Machine backups or have backup software installed. See: Move your Photos library to save space on your Mac - Apple Support

Sometimes it will help to add a few faces manually to get the face recognition started.

Try the following:

Turn on the option to show the faces in the menu "View > Show Face Names" (Vista > Mostar Nomi Volti). This way you will be seeing a circle with a name field as an overlay on all detected faces, when you view a photo enlarged. and you can see, if Photos has detected some faces, even if they have not yet been added to the People album.
Now find some photo of a person you want to see in the People album. Click it to open it and view it enlarged. Then open the Info for the photo and click the + button (Aggiuni un volto) in the Info to add a face manually. Do it for some more people.

Can you now see the people you named in the People album? Or is the button "Via all album persone" still unresponsive?

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Answer 2

its.me

Level 1

4 points

Sep 5, 2023 12:27 AM in response to léonie

hello,

am not sure if it is ok to "hook in" on this topic, but i have a very similar issue with photos not starting to identify faces in photos that i added to my default library on my Mac SSD synced with icloud. Photos are a mix of iphone, and camera imports, about 300-400 photos i added to the library a week ago. Photos does not start to recognize any faces (not even adding unnamed circles to the photos). Have added a couple of names manually, no change. The process photoanalysisid seems to be sitting idle most time. When People and trying the "confirm additional photos" for somebody that is in the new added photos, i am getting "there don't appear to be any additional photos of...". Tried restart of photos and mac as well, but no change.... Any idea?

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Answer 3

just_fra Author

Level 1

6 points

Oct 2, 2023 7:11 AM in response to léonie

Sorry if i kept you waiting, but to answer your questions here's some facts about the drive, and what I've tried:

The drive is formatted in MacOS Extended (Journaled) (found out the hard way that if you format it differently it doesen't recognise the dates of the images imported in the library)
The drive is not always connected to the computer all the time (i unfortunately can't afford to leave it connected 24h since I use the computer for work, but I guess if that's what'll take to analyze the photos I could find a way to make it work)
The drive uses a wired connection, is also partitioned, but i don't think that that's a problem, since partitions should be indipendent from one another
The show faces in the view menu (btw thank you for the italian translation) was already turned on (tried to turn it off then on again but nothing happened)

One thing i didn't know however was the "Aggiungi un volto" function, now the "Vai all'album persone) is responsive, and I can access it, but the automatic analysis hasn't started yet (the photo app is still open, does it need to be completely closed for the process to start, or should I leave it open?)

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Photos App on Mac not analyzing faces

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