Q: 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
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.
Posted on Jul 17, 2016 10:48 AM