Person photos in Photo App not the same between Mac and iPhone

I have a MacBook Pro 16 i9 with Tahoe 26.2 and look at person in photo I see that photo of person showed on Mac is different from what I see on my iPhone Pro Max 12 with iOS 21.2.1

Eg. for a person on Mac I see only 6 photo and on iPhone for the same person I see 84 photo.

It seams that photo on Mac don't sync what iPhone have tagged as the person.

There is a way to have the same tagged person on iPhone in Mac?

MacBook Pro 16″, macOS 26.2

Posted on Feb 9, 2026 6:58 AM

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Question marked as Top-ranking reply

Posted on Feb 9, 2026 8:37 AM

Rossi Paolo wrote: The other photo are unnamed

Then the database doesn't have enough information. It may be that some pictures are mis-identified, which causes confusion. It that's the problem, then you need to find those and fix them. If someone else is identified as him, then click on the face and choose "This is not…"

If your pictures of him are identified with the wrong name, do "This is not…" and give the correct name.


For the unnamed pictures, you should add the name. This will add information to the database to allow Photos to ID other pictures.


Sometimes there will be an extra person album with more pictures of the same one. They can be merged by dragging one album into the other and confirming.


It may take a while for all the corrections to occur.

5 replies
Question marked as Top-ranking reply

Feb 9, 2026 8:37 AM in response to Rossi Paolo

Rossi Paolo wrote: The other photo are unnamed

Then the database doesn't have enough information. It may be that some pictures are mis-identified, which causes confusion. It that's the problem, then you need to find those and fix them. If someone else is identified as him, then click on the face and choose "This is not…"

If your pictures of him are identified with the wrong name, do "This is not…" and give the correct name.


For the unnamed pictures, you should add the name. This will add information to the database to allow Photos to ID other pictures.


Sometimes there will be an extra person album with more pictures of the same one. They can be merged by dragging one album into the other and confirming.


It may take a while for all the corrections to occur.

Feb 9, 2026 7:23 AM in response to Rossi Paolo

Rossi Paolo wrote:

I have a MacBook Pro 16 i9 with Tahoe 26.2 and look at person in photo I see that photo of person showed on Mac is different from what I see on my iPhone Pro Max 12 with iOS 21.2.1
Eg. for a person on Mac I see only 6 photo and on iPhone for the same person I see 84 photo.
It seams that photo on Mac don't sync what iPhone have tagged as the person.
There is a way to have the same tagged person on iPhone in Mac?

Though there is some syncing of names and faces, each device is ultimately responsible for its own face recognition. They usually come out pretty close, but the Mac also has the ability to manually add names to unrecognized faces, for instance, so they can't be exactly the same. I looked at a person album on my Mac, and it has 1280 pictures, but my iPad has 1275 for that person.


I'm guessing that "iOS 21.2.1," is really 26.2.1, is that right? You didn't say-- are you using iCloud Photos to synchronize your Libraries? Do you use Optimize Storage?


It can take quite a while, like a week or more, for the scan of a Library to complete. How long has it been since your last upgrade? Scans and analysis are more likely to continue when the device is plugged in, turned on, and not being used.



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Person photos in Photo App not the same between Mac and iPhone

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