search by search by date in Photos suddenly not working

iPhone 13 Pro Max, updated to iOS 17 2 days ago…I‘ve been using the search in Photos daily for several months & for past 2 days, it returns nothing date related. For instance, entering “9/22” into the search field would return all pix with date for all years. What to do?

iPhone 13 Pro Max, iOS 17

Posted on Sep 22, 2023 6:53 AM

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15 replies

Oct 4, 2023 2:31 PM in response to steveinmidtown

I've played with this now for a few days and have come to the conclusion that this is probably an intentional "feature" of iOS 17 and Sonoma. (It's missing on both.)


I've made an against all odds Hail Mary feature request to add it back but I'd be really surprised if we get it back.


If I had to guess, they may be intending some version of this in the new "Journal" app but I have not played with or seen a beta version so can't validate that one or the other.


Sigh. I'll miss the search by date feature. I used it nearly every day to look at "todays date in my history".

Oct 10, 2023 4:10 PM in response to steveinmidtown

While this sounds crazy, another user discovered that if you set the primary language on iOS17 or macOS Sonoma to French a search using french calendar conventions (ie 9 Octobre) will result in all photos taken on that date.


Perhaps this means that the search by day (ie 10.9) is an omission and may show up in an upcoming update.

That would be nice.


For now, if you are willing to flip back and forth to French, you'll be able to search by date again.

search by search by date in Photos suddenly not working

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