How can I see that I have edited a RAW file in Photos?

You don't say what camera you're talking about, what editing app you're using, or what version of the Mac or Phone or iPad you may be using, so there's a limit to how specific we can be. Here's some general information:

A RAW file means the original data from the camera-- it doesn't get edited, because then it wouldn't be the original data from the camera anymore. What happens is that an edited rendering gets saved, usually with an Export command, and usually as a jpeg, but maybe as a TIFF or other format you can choose--not RAW.

For example, my Nikon saves RAW and jpegs to two different SD cards. I mostly use Photos to edit the jpegs, and I save the RAWs in case I need them. Most of the time editing the jpegs in Photos is great, but when I've decided to go back to a RAW image for extra help, I edit in NX Studio (Nikon's own software) or I've been messing with Lightroom Classic. I use the tools in NX Studio and then "Export" the image as a JPEG100. Then I import that jpeg to Photos to continue cropping and editing. In this case, the RAW stays where it was, and NX Studio records for itself the adjustments it had made.

In thumbnail view, Photos puts a little adjustment slider icon in the upper right corner for pictures that have been

edited in Photos. You turn that on with View>Metadata.

If you import a RAW file to Photos, you will see a rendered version, and it will not indicate that it has been edited.

What do you mean by "I have started to edit my RAW files outside the photos app"?

Have the photos been imported to Photos and have you called an external editor as a photo editing extension from Photos or used the "Image > Edit with" command in Photos for Mac?

When you are passing photos from the Photos.app to an external editor, and the editor can save the results back to Photos, they will appear as edited versions in Photos.

But when you edit the original RAW files directly, not using Photos to pass the RAW files to an editor, Photos will not know that there is an edited version.

But the edited picture will not be RAW. If you try to drag that picture to the Finder, for instance, it will be a jpeg.

Couple of thoughts: there's no such thing as an edited raw. Once processed it has to be saved as something, so it's going to be a jpeg, tiff or whatever.

Also, dragging anything to the Finder from the Photos window yields a jpeg no? Option-drag gets the original.

Not near my own Mac right now so I can't test hat this works for external edited Raes but

File -> New Smart Album

Photo -> is -> Raw

+

Photo -> is- > edited

This will produce a list of pictures that were imported as RAW and which have a list of edits associated with them. But the edited picture will not be RAW. If you try to drag that picture to the Finder, for instance, it will be a jpeg.

Right! And I didn't know about option-dragging for the original! But I fear dragging results could change any time.

Oddly, about 30 minutes ago I tried dragging a RAW file I had just edited, and I got the classic "unknown error." An older one was OK. I again tried with the "just edited" picture, and it worked, producing a jpeg with the crops and edits. It apparently took quite a while to associate the edits and produce an exportable image.