Jerry Dammers

Q: How are "Moments" defined in Photos for Mac?

Having used the "Photos" album view (top left) to label descriptions and locations, I can see the benefits of this view.

 

Is this the same as "Moments" in iOS? It certainly seems to have the same purpose.

 

Also, what are the parameters to define the "moments" on my Mac? It seems to group photos by time and/or location but I can't work out exactly what rules it is applying (and this becomes relevant where I might want to group photos together)

 

Thank you

MacBook Pro with Retina display, macOS Sierra (10.12), + iPhone 6 Plus & iPad Air 2

Posted on Oct 6, 2016 1:20 AM

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Q: How are "Moments" defined in Photos for Mac?

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  • by thombirch,

    thombirch thombirch Oct 6, 2016 2:26 AM in response to Jerry Dammers
    Level 1 (66 points)
    Apple Music
    Oct 6, 2016 2:26 AM in response to Jerry Dammers

    Moments in Photos are the new Events, i.e. groupings of photos sorted by date taken.

     

    Moments in Photos are the New Events

  • by Jerry Dammers,

    Jerry Dammers Jerry Dammers Oct 6, 2016 2:34 AM in response to thombirch
    Level 1 (23 points)
    Mac OS X
    Oct 6, 2016 2:34 AM in response to thombirch

    They are not all grouped by the same date though. There are some multiple groupings on the same date, usually split by location (which is logical) but also sometimes by time (e.g. some morning photos are grouped together, as are some evening ones). It's those parameters around time and location which I am curious about- i.e. what rules are applied to group the photos.

  • by thombirch,

    thombirch thombirch Oct 6, 2016 2:40 AM in response to Jerry Dammers
    Level 1 (66 points)
    Apple Music
    Oct 6, 2016 2:40 AM in response to Jerry Dammers

    Yes they are grouped together by locations and also what time of day they were taken.

  • by Jerry Dammers,

    Jerry Dammers Jerry Dammers Oct 6, 2016 3:00 AM in response to thombirch
    Level 1 (23 points)
    Mac OS X
    Oct 6, 2016 3:00 AM in response to thombirch

    But I have some photos that are grouped together despite different locations and, conversely, some photos from the same location on the same day split into two moments.

     

    Hence, presumably there are rules being applied that aren't just to group photos by day (or time?) and/or location?

  • by LarryHN,

    LarryHN LarryHN Oct 6, 2016 6:36 AM in response to Jerry Dammers
    Level 10 (85,414 points)
    Photos for Mac
    Oct 6, 2016 6:36 AM in response to Jerry Dammers

    Of course there are rules - they have not been published so no one here knows what they are - some can be guessed at from looking at results

     

    LN

  • by Jerry Dammers,

    Jerry Dammers Jerry Dammers Oct 6, 2016 6:54 AM in response to LarryHN
    Level 1 (23 points)
    Mac OS X
    Oct 6, 2016 6:54 AM in response to LarryHN

    Yes, that's the point of my post. To ask if anybody knows what the rules might be, or can guess them from their experiences (as I am unable to from mine).

  • by LarryHN,

    LarryHN LarryHN Oct 6, 2016 7:03 AM in response to Jerry Dammers
    Level 10 (85,414 points)
    Photos for Mac
    Oct 6, 2016 7:03 AM in response to Jerry Dammers

    basically Moments are sorted by photos date/time and location with the added complication that for Photos taken in a different time zone than they are imported in the date/time gets weird

     

    again no one knows but there are some guesses discussed here

     

    LN

  • by tikilab,

    tikilab tikilab Oct 6, 2016 6:02 PM in response to Jerry Dammers
    Level 1 (42 points)
    Photos for Mac
    Oct 6, 2016 6:02 PM in response to Jerry Dammers

    Sorry, ignore this post. Can't delete it.

  • by Old Toad,

    Old Toad Old Toad Oct 6, 2016 9:22 PM in response to Jerry Dammers
    Level 10 (141,525 points)
    Mac OS X
    Oct 6, 2016 9:22 PM in response to Jerry Dammers

    There is a problem with Photos taken on one day but imported later when located in a different time zone. The time gets messed up and can get confusing in the Photos window.  That may be part of what you're seeing.

     

    OTsig.png

  • by Jerry Dammers,

    Jerry Dammers Jerry Dammers Oct 7, 2016 1:23 AM in response to Old Toad
    Level 1 (23 points)
    Mac OS X
    Oct 7, 2016 1:23 AM in response to Old Toad

    I have photos in my library from more than one device - and therefore at the same time in different locations - and Photos is grouping them altogether despite being at different locations.

     

    My preference is to separate Photos by location and time, but as the Photos view is chronological presumably time is the priority rule.

     

    I'm still not clear what rule it is then applied to time - some collections of moments are over two days, others are only a morning (despite all being at the same location).

  • by léonie,

    léonie léonie Oct 7, 2016 1:50 AM in response to Jerry Dammers
    Level 10 (108,438 points)
    iCloud
    Oct 7, 2016 1:50 AM in response to Jerry Dammers

    In my Photos library I am seeing, that Moments will be split in two, if the locations are separated by a large distance and there is a temporal gap of a few hours. Occasionally a moment will contain photos taken on two successive days, if I stayed in the same city. Moments that are longer than a day seem to be new in macOS Sierra. I did not notice this before.

    The moments will always be split, when the photos have been taken in different states, even if the country and date are the same.

    For example, on my flight to Mexico I took these photos from the plane. The temporal gap was not large, but the photos have been taken over different states of Canada and appear in separate moments:

    Screen Shot 2016-10-07 at 10.45.09 GMT.jpg

  • by léonie,

    léonie léonie Oct 7, 2016 2:11 AM in response to léonie
    Level 10 (108,438 points)
    iCloud
    Oct 7, 2016 2:11 AM in response to léonie

    Looking closer, the moments stretched across two days are misleading: It may be caused by seeing the dates with the system time set to my  current time zone GMT+2.

    For example - all photos in this moment have been taken on the same day in Mexico, February 21, the first photo early morning, the last late at night. But viewed with the system time GMT+2 the late is listed as February 21 and 22.

     

    Screen Shot 2016-10-07 at 10.58.39 GMT.png

  • by Jerry Dammers,

    Jerry Dammers Jerry Dammers Oct 7, 2016 2:22 AM in response to léonie
    Level 1 (23 points)
    Mac OS X
    Oct 7, 2016 2:22 AM in response to léonie

    My situation should be more straightforward than yours léonie, as I'm based in the UK where we have the same time zone (so time zone shouldn't be a significant issue).

     

    The only exceptions are when I go on holiday but this is relatively easy to manage as there is a defined time period I'm away from the UK and those photos are rarely mixed with different time zones.

     

    Because I have photos from more than one device/family member in my library, I'm getting moments bunched together in different UK locations when I think they should be separate (as they are - in UK terms - relatively far away). Presumably this is because Photos doesn't want to break its chronological order and, if it split out photos for every different location, then it would be displaying multiple moments. Instead it appears takes a call to group together all the photos, say in a morning, even if they are from three or four different locations.

  • by léonie,

    léonie léonie Oct 7, 2016 3:10 AM in response to Jerry Dammers
    Level 10 (108,438 points)
    iCloud
    Oct 7, 2016 3:10 AM in response to Jerry Dammers

    Are the photos taken by family members tagged with gps? If they have been taken far away they should be separated. Without GPS Photos will put them into the same moments as photos with a similar date and time.

     

    I used brute force to get the photos taken by others into separate moments - I set the date  of photos shared by others  back by 1000 years. They appear in a different part of the moments, but I can always tell the correct date.

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