Photos app text search not working on iPhone 17 Pro running iOS 26.2.1

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Level 1

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Photos app text search not working on iPhone 17 Pro running iOS 26.2.1

I recently upgraded from an iPhone 13 Pro to an iPhone 17 Pro.

I have around 11,000 items in my photo library. On my 13 Pro running iOS 18, search worked perfectly. If I searched for text that appeared in a photo, it would reliably show up in the results.

This no longer seems to be the case on my 17 Pro.

Today, I was looking for a photo of my passport because I was booking a holiday. As I used to do on my old iPhone, I opened Photos and searched for one of my surnames. On my 13 Pro, this would immediately return the passport photo. However, on my 17 Pro, it only returned five results, all of which were taken fairly recently.

After manually finding the photo by scrolling, I tried searching for the passport number shown in the image, but the search returned zero results—even though I had just viewed the photo seconds earlier.

I found this strange, since I know these photos are in my library. To test further, I tried the same search on my MacBook (2019 i5 running macOS Sequoia 15.7.3), and it correctly found all photos containing my full name (29 results).

I’m not sure whether this is an iOS bug or something else. I should note that I have Apple Intelligence turned off on my iPhone by choice. At the moment, the phone feels less capable than my older devices, which don’t even support Apple Intelligence.

My question is:

Is there anything I can do to fix this, or do I need to enable Apple Intelligence on my new device to regain the same photo search functionality I had on my older iPhones?

I’ve attached screenshots below as proof of the behaviour described above.

iPhone 17 Pro, iOS 26

Posted on Feb 8, 2026 5:05 PM

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Answer 1

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Richard.Taylor

Level 6

18,553 points

Feb 9, 2026 8:17 AM in response to Yur0

Yur0 wrote: … recently upgraded

How recently? Scanning takes time. It doesn't search through pictures-- it searches through the database information that was accumulated during scanning.

I’m not sure whether this is an iOS bug or something else.

Search works fine for me for text, captions, keywords and titles (assigned on Mac,) and for general things it finds in pictures.

Is there anything I can do to fix this, or do I need to enable Apple Intelligence on my new device to regain the same photo search functionality I had on my older iPhones?

Some searches certainly require AI. Even though I think it shouldn't matter for simple searches, why not turn it on and see if it makes a difference?

In Settings>Apps>Photos, I have Enhanced Visual Search and Show Featured Content turned on. Probably not significant, but just in case…

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Answer 2

Feb 9, 2026 9:22 AM in response to Yur0

Yur0 wrote: …I'll give a try to turning on Apple Inteligence to see if anything changes. The only reason I don't have it on, its because I don't really see any benefit (yet) in using it. But still seems very odd that this might only work if I have it on. Specially because the function I'm having problems with works as intended on devices that don't have Apple Intelligence available.

I agree-- and AI isn't even available in some places. But it's worth a try, and I can't think of anything else.

Well, there's this: what is your storage on this iPhone? At Settings>General>iPhone Storage, my phone says 50.5 GB of 128 GB used. What does yours say? Do you have more than 10% free storage on your iPhone?

I searched for "ring" on my phone and got 8 results. On my Mac, 7. Of those, only 6 were the same on both devices. Most found "ring" as text in pictures. Here's one I'm amazed with-- a picture of a kid at a park reading something:

Do you suppose Photos recorded this entire two pages of tiny text? It's actually pretty clear…

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Answer 3

Yur0 Author

Level 1

4 points

Feb 9, 2026 8:44 AM in response to Richard.Taylor

Richard.Taylor wrote: How recently? ...

I've done the upgrade in November last year, so if there is still anything to be indexed it should be by now.

Some searches certainly require AI.

The searches I'm doing worked fine on my old device, and still work on devices that don't have access to Apple Intelligence, its not like i'm searching something complex, its just text that is available on the pictures that I already have, which used to work.

In Settings>Apps>Photos, I have Enhanced Visual Search and Show Featured Content turned on. Probably not significant, but just in case…

I do have "Enhanced Visual Search" on.

I'll give a try to turning on Apple Inteligence to see if anything changes. The only reason I don't have it on, its because I don't really see any benefit (yet) in using it. But still seems very odd that this might only work if I have it on. Specially because the function I'm having problems with works as intended on devices that don't have Apple Intelligence available.

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Answer 4

Yur0 Author

Level 1

4 points

Feb 9, 2026 9:43 AM in response to Richard.Taylor

Well, there's this: what is your storage on this iPhone? (...) Do you have more than 10% free storage on your iPhone?

My Phone is a 512GB model, and I have 149.54GB used so...😅

I have turned on Apple Inteligence now, and still have the same results...

I'm wondering if reseting the phone might help on this, I just really didn't want to because of all the Banking and 2FA apps that I will have to set up again.

I searched for "ring" on my phone and got 8 results. On my Mac, 7. Of those, only 6 were the same on both devices. Most found "ring" as text in pictures. Here's one I'm amazed with-- a picture of a kid at a park reading something

This is actually pretty impressive.

The thing that I find the funniest is that, like I've said in my case, I was looking for the passport photo, and even when I search for the passport number (CExxxxx) it gives no results, even tho the text is pretty big and legible. But on the Macbook it has no problems finding that.

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Photos app text search not working on iPhone 17 Pro running iOS 26.2.1

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