Iphoto 11 -How to turn off faces?

Am I the only one who thinks that having a "feature" no one really needs or may not want and that is by default, NON-NEGOTIABLE as far as being able to turn off, a bit unsettling?

I found this thread after trying to load several hundred photos (and being bogged down) and found that iPhoto was trying to "tag" all the Faces. When I went into the Faces pane to apply "manomoab's" solution, I discovered there were over 15,000 "unnamed faces" in my Library. And I can only delete 3 at a time.

Hecka'va job there, Apple! 😠

If that unsettles you there are two options:

1. Upgrade to Aperture. Among its many extra options is the ability to turn off faces. Pay more, get more options.

or

2. Use some other app entirely, or even just use folders in the Finder. iPhoto is not compulsory.

there is one and onloy one solution - use a different program -- it is no possible to turn faces off if you use iPhoto

Sorry that you do not like the answer - but that is the answer

and a very trivial answer - attaciing the meswsanger does not schange the fract that yu can no turn faces off

have a nice day

LN

As someone whose efforts have been recognised by - at least - some 11,600 people, I'm comfortable enough with my contribution to the forum to ignore this.

I hope your solution works, great if it does - though I believe you should warn people to back up first. Your other advice I'll pay attention to after you've been around here a little longer. Look forward to your other contributions.

<Edited By Host>

Lopezio, You are really my hero!!! My computer has been so slow for more than a year now. I've had a new hard drive installed then doubled my memory trying to fix the problem. Still my computer has run and run and run, overheated, shut down, I've had three new batteries in a year and with your simple suggestion all my problems are fixed. Thank you, Thank you, Thank you. I was really getting bummed out about the next step which was to buy a new computer. You're a genius!! Have I said enough???

Lopezio - I have tried and tried your solution but Faces is still in the menu 😟 Please help?? I am opening the terminal box where i copy and paste or type the command then press enter and nothing... still the same when i re-open iphotos 😟

xxCASxx wrote:

Lopezio - I have tried and tried your solution but Faces is still in the menu 😟 Please help?? I am opening the terminal box where i copy and paste or type the command then press enter and nothing... still the same when i re-open iphotos 😟

Hi,

The prefs change does not remove the Faces tab on the left. It Just disables further face detection (the wheel stops turining in the Faces tab), thus saving battery life on laptops and reducing processor usage.

There is no special need for a backup before this operation. It does not change anything in the Libraries and is revertible.

Only note of caution: I tested on iPhoto 9.5.1. It presumably works on 9.x.x too, but there is no warranty that it will work on older or newer versions.

HNY everyone,

Regards,

lopezio

iPhoto Menu -> Provide iPhoto Feedback

Thanks, I just did. I hope everyone else annoyed by this does so as well, even though the command-line "fix" seems to work ok. Others seem to think that Apple is immune to customer feedback, and iPhoto "is what it is" take it or leave it. I find that disheartening and a bit odd, but we'll see. If it realy is a general Apple philosophy not to provide basic feature config (on/off) that's news to me, and I hope it's simply not true.

Kudos, the cli solution is very helpful and is in line with the OP was hoping for.

There is a privacy issue with this particular function and not being able to turn it off is discomforting.

Another way of handling it, is to freeze the version (e.g. by going back to an earlier version from a backup) and stopping any update-connections using the appropriate tools. But this is not recommended, as there might always be a necessary security update, too.

I did the time-warp, as iPhoto '08 is doing all I need. This way, there is no need to drop iPhoto at all, but the trade-off is to loose any wished for new functinalities (I did not see any that I needed).

Interesting approach! But be careful, I know some prior version of iPhoto kept everything in one (huge) opaque file on disk and "managed" everything itself -- including managing to lose a bunch of my pictures once, at random, and it was a huge pain to reconstruct from backups. More recently all the pics (Masters, edits, etc.) are kept in a very nice folder hiearchy of regular disk files (JPGs etc.) which makes me a lot more comfortable, and allows general read-only access etc. Not sure '08 is set up that way, I'd check. Apple doesn't just add new features you don't need, they also fix a lot of actual problems, don't forget. (Like realizing that the OS already has a thoroughly debugged file system.) And use iPhoto Menu -> Provide iPhoto Feedback, just takes a minute!

Thanks, nice write-up. I use Grand Perspective to check disk usage, iPhoto Library is one big (huge) box, didn't realize it's always been file system underneath, good to know. Definititely Managed with iPhoto, didn't mean to suggest otherwise.

Greetings, I would like to please learn how to turn OFF the "faces" function - it is draining my CPU and I am out of traveling out of the country - is there any way other than having to download another photo program?

Aperture was mentioned earlier but costs $70.

I tried the "applications > utilities > terminal" instructions but that did not work on iphoto11 (as mentioned in other posts)

Thank you lopezio, for your direct answer; I did it and it worked perfectly!

Thanks also for improving our lives and liberating us from all this bs running around as excuses for "doing the right thing".

I wanted to get ride of this annoying face recognition, I didn't want or have to justify why, and you really helped.

Terence,

Nobody likes your "matter of fact" attitude.

People come on here searching for a solution to get rid of the annoying face recognition and instead of contributing in a positive manner, you belittle with subtle sarcastic comments.

It is absurd to tell people on here to either deal with it or upgrade to Aperature. They put a man on the moon in the 60's, I guarantee you there is a workaround for this. Lopezio's fix seems to be the answer. Thank you!

Midnight Flyer

Nobody likes your pointless out-of-date posts. The responses I gave in this thread date from... 18 months ago. They were true then. Those were the options at that time. Or don't you read the dates? Or check the many other threads where I have answered this query in the months since? No? Why not?