how do I get face names to stay in photos?
Spent hours updating face names, but when I review them later, many names are no longer there. How do I get them to truly save / not disappear?
iMac 24″, macOS 14.5
Question marked as
Sometimes with updates, Photos will re-scan for faces, and some may get lost. But I can't think of a time when they just vanished for no reason, though it may have happened.
Many of us try to prepare for this by using keywords. For instance, I select all the pictures in Pete's people album, and I add Pete as a keyword. Then I do it for more of the people. When I have new pictures, I try to put in keywords before Photos even identifies them. I use Smart Albums like this
to find people whose faces I haven't yet been identified. Or, in unusual cases, when someone's personhood has disappeared.
I also go the other way, with "person is" & "Keyword is not," so I can get the keywords where they belong.
Keywords don't require Photos to scan the Library, so they are more stable that faces. Also, when pictures are sent to friends, Apple's faces never are included, but keywords can be.