Searching photographs

Search finds photographs using words Frames detects, keywords you add and text in your captions.

1. In Browse, press ⌘F to focus the search field above the grid.
2. Type a word and press ⏎ or Space to add it.
3. Add more words to narrow detected-word results. Each photograph must match every word.

Click ✕ beside a term to remove it. Duplicate terms are ignored. Press esc to clear the search refinements and leave the field. With the field empty, ⌫ removes one filter at a time, starting nearest the cursor. With text present, it edits normally.

The count shows matching photographs. Search persists when switching modes, and the status bar lists it with Browse’s filters. VoiceOver identifies the field as Search photographs. Results update about 150 milliseconds after typing stops.

Where you search. The strip opens with the place you are in, such as Trips › 2011 › Iceland. Click a part to move up to it, or its ✕ to search All Photographs; the words and filters stay. While a search is on, the count says how many of the place’s photographs it shows, such as 48 of 212. On iPhone and iPad, Search says Searching in the place, with Search All Photographs beside it.

Detected words. Frames analyses subject, people, lighting, composition and short text visible in photographs. Text may include signs, names or race numbers. Detected words are estimates; low-confidence results are excluded from typed searches. Completed detected words use whole-word matches: boa does not match boat.

Your keywords and captions are searched alongside detected words. For a caption, every typed word must appear somewhere in the caption, in any order; partial words match too. A phrase in quotation marks is treated as words for caption matching. Caption matching ignores ASCII letter case and treats the percent sign and underscore as literal characters. The result breakdown distinguishes photographs you described from those found only by analysis. Multiword queries have a different meaning for user keywords; see Words of your own.

Analysis. Sync analyses newly rendered proxies on disk without downloading originals. The activity queue shows Scene analysis and a count. Click ✕ to stop it; the next sync resumes unfinished work.

On iPhone and iPad, analysis starts after source sync has rendered local previews. It pauses while Develop is open. On Apple TV, it starts after the selected album’s previews have rendered and resumes an unfinished pass when that album opens again. Open Activity in the top bar on these devices to see progress, stop a pass, or restart pending analysis. Detected terms are derived locally, so each device can finish at a different time. With sync on, a device takes in what your other devices measured; see Decision sync.

The first pass after inactivity can spend approximately 30 seconds loading models. During this time the row shows Preparing without a progress fraction. Estimates exclude that preparation time.

Use Analyse for search in Sources when photographs await analysis. It shows a count and estimated time before starting.

The analysis index can be cleared in Storage and rebuilt from proxies. User keywords and captions remain searchable while the detected-word index is empty. Clearing stops the current analysis and grouping passes, then starts a fresh analysis pass when background work is available. No relaunch is needed.

Photographs like this one

Select a photograph in Browse and press S, or choose More Like This from the Library menu. The selected photograph appears first, followed by up to 100 visually similar photographs, closest first.

Similarity uses image content, including subject and setting. Filename, date, folder and camera do not determine the match. Browse’s collection and other filters still apply, so fewer than 100 results may remain.

A chip such as like L1008372.DNG identifies the reference photograph. It stays visible while results load. Click its ✕ to remove similarity and restore the previous sort. The sort control shows Similarity while active; this order cannot be selected directly from the sort menu.

Kept when you quit. Frames opens with the search you left: the words, the filename, keywords, detected words, dates, cameras, lenses and statuses, beside RAW only, Edited, Kept, Monochrome, the rating and the order. A More Like This search is the one part left behind. On the Mac each part stands in the search strip as a chip; on iPhone and iPad the collection title names what narrows the grid; on Apple TV, Search opens on it.

See Words of your own, The Explore drawer, Words of your own.