Faces data not appearing in Photos

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Level 1

9 points

Faces data not appearing in Photos

Hi everyone - I just came across a big issue with Photos this morning and it's making me a little nervous. For some reason I'm unable to use my existing Faces tags in Photos. I have hundreds of faces tagged in thousands of photos, and have never had an issue before. When I go to the Faces album, nothing shows up - it's completely empty. However, when I search for an already-tagged face in the search bar, the data is still there, since when I search for a particular name, it'll show the correct amount of tagged photos. Additionally, when I want to tag a new photo of a person who's already been tagged, I can't, as their existing tag doesn't show up when I start typing in their name.

I've spent so much time getting my faces and tags all organized, so this is really making me concerned. I haven't done anything that I think could cause this. I'm running the latest version of El Capitan and would love any advice you guys have...

MacBook Pro (Retina, 15-inch, Late 2013), OS X El Capitan (10.11.3)

Posted on Jul 17, 2016 8:43 AM

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Answer 1

léonie

Level 10

200,699 points

Jul 17, 2016 10:48 AM in response to boston_lady

Are you using iCloud Photo Library?

The behavior you are describing is typical for a Photos library downloaded from iCloud.

A library synced from iCloud will have all searchable faces tags, but not the Faces albums.

Could be that Photos for some reason could not open your regular Photos Library and opened a new one, then downloaded the photos from iCloud?

What happened, before the faces album vanished?

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Answer 2

boston_lady Author

Level 1

9 points

Jul 17, 2016 9:37 AM in response to léonie

@léonie, thank you so much for your quick reply! I am in fact using iCloud Photo Library.

And your response made me remember something obvious that I just did not think about before...about a month ago I did need to set up my MacBook Pro 15" as new due to some unrelated disk corruption issues, and unfortunately my Time Machine data was also corrupted. However, since everything of importance to me is now somehow stored in iCloud, including Photos, I wasn't too upset about it, and simply restored everything from the cloud - including my photos. I had no idea that Faces albums would not come back...

Do you know if there are any fixes for this? And, any thoughts as to what I should do moving forward? I took a bunch of photos yesterday at a family party and need to tag them soon. Is there any way to tag new photos with existing faces, or will I have to have duplicate face tags for the same person?

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Answer 3

léonie

Level 10

200,699 points

Jul 17, 2016 10:48 AM in response to boston_lady

Have a look at this document: Use Photos and iCloud Photo Library on multiple Mac computers - Apple Support

https://support.apple.com/en-us/HT204486

Your Photos library will now be just as described there - the Faces albums missing and the faces thumbnails not showing, and also any products will be missing - books, calendars, cards, slideshows.

If your Time Machine backup did not work, you will have to recreate the faces thumbnails and other missing items.

The next version of Photos in macOS Sierra will have better support for automatic face detection and tagging faces. I would wait with the recreating of the faces albums until you can upgrade to Sierra in autumn.

But tag any new photos now, or any photos you need tagged now.

Just search for the names, and when the photos come up enable "Show faces Names" in the View menu. Then type the names into the faces name fields. This will not create duplicate faces names.

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Answer 4

boston_lady Author

Level 1

9 points

Jul 17, 2016 10:54 AM in response to léonie

That explains a lot, @léonie, thank you very much! I had no idea that Faces albums weren't previously synced to the cloud. However, I'm glad that it appears as though the data itself is synced, as I've always been able to search for Faces on my iPad and iPhone. I'd read that Sierra will have better support for Faces. If I keep tagging in the meantime, do you know if my Faces albums will come back once I upgrade this fall? I know it's a bit early to be talking about Sierra but now I'm very curious!

On that note, I understand now that Sierra will support automatic Faces tagging - that won't interfere with my manual tagging, right? Even after upgrading to Sierra, I'm pretty sure I'll still be doing lots of manual tagging since I always tag everyone in every photo, even if a face is partially obscured or something. Or, I'd hate for Sierra's automated system to go through and un-tag all the tags I've previously put in place...ugh! I know this is a bit off topic but if you have any knowledge about this, I'd love to hear it as well!

Thanks again so much for your help! 🙂

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Answer 5

léonie

Level 10

200,699 points

Jul 17, 2016 12:14 PM in response to boston_lady

If I keep tagging in the meantime, do you know if my Faces albums will come back once I upgrade this fall? I know it's a bit early to be talking about Sierra but now I'm very curious!

Apple did not yet publish much, and the developers are not allowed to talk.

See the Sierra preview: http://www.apple.com/macos/sierra-preview/

And powerful new technologies make Photos even better at face recognition,

Just keep tagging your new photos, the work will not be lost when you upgrade to Sierra.

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