View photos on a specific date throughout the years

Hello - I've being doing some work on this.

It appears that the "search by specific date" (ie 10/2) functionality has been removed from iOS17 and macOS Sonoma (Both of the just released Apple operating systems.)

Apple's documentation now says that search by date feature works for Year and Month (but now excludes by "day".)

Upshot is - the problem does not appear to be on your end. Appears to be an intentional design by Apple.

I've put in a request with Apple support to restore search by day but I'm not holding my breath.

Odds are that we won't get this functionality back - which is a bummer.

Hope that's helpful.

While this sounds crazy it works.

Another user discovered that if you set the primary language on iOS17 or macOS Sonoma to French a search using french calendar conventions (ie 9 Octobre) will result in all photos taken on that date.

Perhaps this more proof that the search by day (ie 10.9) is an omission and may show up in an upcoming update.

That would be nice.

For now, if you are willing to flip back and forth to French, you'll be able to search by date again.

Re... "Then doing so, you may see the date with the options listed while typing your search criteria."

FWIW - I've tested this pretty throughly.

In both iOS17 and macOS Sonoma, while you can technically search "by date" (ie 10/2) such a search will only return photos that contains text "10" and "2" but will NOT return photos taken on 10/2 or October 2.

While users can still search by MONTH or YEAR, by DATE is no longer available and appears to have been intentionally removed in iOS17 and macOS Sonoma.

The only way to get that functionality back at this time is to restore to the prior OS.

I have put a feature request into Apple support but do not expect that this will be resolved - which is a bummer for those of us that used that functionality regularly.

Hope that's helpful.

Hey mikgra979,

Thanks for using Apple Support Communities. You should still be able to search in the Photos app by date (month or year) as shown here: Search for photos on iPhone - Apple Support

If searching isn't working for you, check to make sure your photo library isn't updating. If it is, wait for the process to finish and try searching again. To check the photo library, use the steps in the section "Check the status of your library in Photos" here: If your iCloud Photos aren't syncing to your device - Apple Support

It's also always a great idea to restart your iPhone as that can resolve many odd issues too: Restart your iPhone - Apple Support

Let us know how it goes.

Take care!

Hello mikgra979,

Thanks for reaching out again. Looking at the iPhone User Guide for iOS 17, it does show the search options are Date (Month or Year).

Search for photos on iPhone - Apple Support

Then doing so, you may see the date with the options listed while typing your search criteria.

If you'd like to submit feedback to Apple about this, you can use this link:

Feedback - Photos - Apple

Regards.

Maybe some good news on this front.

As of 10.9.23 seeing some reports that the ability to search by specific date (ie 10/2) may available again when iOS17.1 is released later in OCT.

Hope that's helpful.

It’s working for me. When I put 10/7 it pulls up all photos taken on that date over the years. If I add the year (10/7/2019) it pulls up only the photos from that date. Am I misunderstanding what you are asking about? I am on iOS 17.0.3

To see if I could search by date, I tried several different dates like this 10/3 or 10/24 and in every instance, photos taken on those dates, were revealed. Apple has not removed this feature. And it works just fine on my iPhone 15 Pro Max using iOS 17.0.3

Here's the link to the post from the other user referenced above:

255171771

Good news!

The update released today - iOS 17.1 fixes this issue.

I just installed the update and the search by day is working as before.