Photos indexing and recognising items/elements in photos and videos [no question, just some observations]
This is not so much a question, but more of a follow-up to a question user @Willo posted here three years ago. The question of the post was how to force Photos to update its index of metadata or faces. @léonie's upvoted answer provided a good pointer indicating that the Photos library needed to be maintained, weeding out media formats Photos can't handle. It seemed like a stark oversight of Apple to have –in this user's words– "one bad apple […] block the analysis of your library after the upgrade". There is an article here worthwhile reading.
My Photos library suffered from the same problem, whereby I could not search for items or elements in photos and videos, or rather, any search would return no results. This was the case under macOS Sonoma. With the macOS upgrade to Sequoia this issue seems to have vanished, though I'm still running tests to see why some photos with obvious items in them don't turn up in search results. To that end, it'd be good to know if there is a forced re-indexing possible in Photos version 10.
Digging in the Photos library's SQL databases, I think I've come across one where items are stored, but I don't remember which of the many it was. I also don't want to suggest that deleting/editing database this would force Photos to re-index.
It would also be nice (Apple are you listening?) if Photos would be more culturally and locally aware. If I want to find my photos of echidnas I have to search for "hedgehog". I know there is a Feedback app, that I should use to nudge Apple.
Another nice feature that I only notice now that my search is actually working (unless it's really a new thing), is that where search results return videos, the timeline in the video is highlighted at those parts where the search term appears in the video. If for instance you searched for "kangaroo" and have a video wherein you pan to a kangaroo in and out, the timeline is highlighted in blue when the kangaroo is visible. It looks like this. Now, don't judge me why in a 23 seconds video I might have panned in and out of a kangaroo several times. I have not, but it's the times that the AI has probably clearly identified that, yes, that's a kangaroo.
Going back to the indexing question: I see that (staying with the topic) when I search for "kangaroo" there is an "Indexing…" line at the bottom, suggesting that the database is still updating. So maybe, letting Photos just sit there and absorb all your photos is the best way to index it. Hope that helps!
P.S.: Don't ask me what a "Kangaroo Bear" is. The results for "Kangaroo Bear" show koalas, which are not bears! 😂🤦🏻 As I said, Apple has to hone in on its cultural sensitivity.
