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photos 9 update, search filters missing

I have 80,000 photos, and used to be able to search my entire photos liibrary by category, album, folder, location, etc etc etc. there were a million sorting categories. then i updated to sonoma - poof! they are not listed anymore. how can i perform a search more precisely in this new app? am i missing the new method of searching that provides more search parameters?

MacBook Pro 13″, OS X 10.11

Posted on Apr 21, 2024 11:00 AM

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9 replies

Apr 21, 2024 11:14 AM in response to Patricia Mollica

After the upgrade to Sonoma you will have to wait a bit, until Photos scanned your library again for the objects in the photos and the scene types. After that you will again be able to search for the categories.

Just type the category you are looking for into the search field like before.

For example, searching for pictures of bears on Sonoma:

Apr 22, 2024 10:27 AM in response to Richard.Taylor

Did you scroll down to see the different groups of search result, the click the stack "Category: Bear"?


When I open the Category results, it is quite o.k., some false positives, but nearly no misses. My screenshot is in German, because my Mac is currently set to German as primary language: The arrows are marking the "Categories" and "Bear", which is "Bär" in German. The search does not handle the Umlaut "ä" well. It is also adding results for "bar", completely unrelated.


When I open the "Bear" Category, I am seeing many correctly identified bears, but also some other furry animals, that are no bears - a sheep, a wild boar, a lion, red pandas, baboons.



Apr 22, 2024 10:47 AM in response to léonie

léonie said: When I open the "Bear" Category, I am seeing many correctly identified bears, but also some other furry animals, that are no bears - a sheep, a wild boar, a lion, red pandas, baboons.


It seems very powerful-- it searched keywords in the past, and apparently it still does. And it must search other text, captions and/or titles, to get things like "Ring of Beara" which doesn't at all evoke furry critters. Dogs, plush toys, horses, Beanie Babies, and a few pictures that seem to make more sense to it than to me.


The search offered "Bear Lane," which I selected, and it returned my pictures of the Newbury Racecourse. I couldn't find anything connected. Computesr can be so weird. It makes you a bit frightened about the coming of Artificial Intelligence.

photos 9 update, search filters missing

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