Keyword search fails to return results in Photos

I'm just hoping someone has experienced the same thing and that there is a fix for it.

Several users reported, that the search does not find all photos with the search keyword after the High Sierra upgrade. There seems to be no known fix other than using a smart album for the keyword search for the time being. I am keeping a separate smart album with a smart rule "keyword is" just for searches.

To search for keywords in the favorite section of the Keyword manager, the Filter "Showing" is giving more reliable results than searching for the keyword directly:

I am frequently using the "Showing" filter to select the photos with keywords in the current view, for example all photos with the keyword "Bird" or "Bear".

I'm also having problems with search (not finding photos, showing incorrect search matches), which I have reported to Apple.

Also, I have many keywords but none are shown in the Showing > Show Only Keywords menu as you have shown in your post above. It has Keyword Manager... instead of Show Only Keywords. How does one get the keywords to show in this menu?

Click "Keyword Manager..."

When it opens, drag keywords to the top section "Favorites". Your Favorite keywords will get a keyboard shortcut assigned and will show in the "Show only" filter.

It is not very intuitive. I am using a different approach to get keywords there.

• I click "Edit Keywords" and assign a keyboard shortcut to the keyword in question.
• The keyword will become a favourite.

I like the filtering by keywords a lot. It is saving me the trouble to create smart albums for every combination of keywords I might need.

Do your keywords contain upper and lowercase letters? Is your Photos Library on an external drive, perhaps with a case-sensitive file system format?

Have you checked in the Keywords Manager in Edit mode, if there are duplicate keywords?

Launch the Keywords manager with ⌘K and click "Edit" at the bottom of the panel. You will see a sorted list of Keywords.

Thank you. I see the "Drag..." instruction but it's not a very intuitive UI; I've never seen one like this, where you drop something onto text (and that text then disappears). Come to think of it, shouldn't the prompt be "Drag your favorite keywords here." Maybe it's just my old age.

try a smart album and see if it gets them all (file menu ==> new smart album -- Keyword is [select from the list])

LN

How long ago did you upgrade to High Sierra? You may need to give Photos time to complete its indexing scan of the library

LN

Thanks for that additional tip. I agree regarding filtering by keywords.

I haven't done exhaustive testing but search seems to be working much better after today's 10.13.4 update.

I am also getting better search results since the 10.13.4 update.