IOS18 doesn't find photos by caption or date (day, month and year).

I teach photo management and organization. For years I've been teaching students how to put specific words, emojis and phrases in the "Add a Caption" field so that they can easily search and re-find these images. The updated search with ios18 was NOT an improvement for using this type of image "tagging" as now search brings up so many random results. Before 18 Photos would at least sort results into sections, so I could find results matched in the caption field.

I would LOVE this to be fixed!

Agree. I also have been teaching people how to do this for years and it’s been a crucial strategy especially for video, which has no searchable text in a photo.

I take a lot of videos of weightlifting sets and other sports things for training purposes. there’s no way to know by looking at a video how much weight is on the bar.

I meticulously go through each video after a training session to add to the caption the lift, the load, and the reps. Or for my circus training, I write the skill name and relevant notes.

This helps me find the relevant videos so I can create highlight reels or compare a specific load/skill at different points of time.

I also include relevant notes in the caption filed or emojis for PRs

A search for “deadlift 185” used to show me a section in results sorted by caption so I could see what was what. Also so I could see where I used “deadlift” vs “deadlifts” - in which case I’d go back to make them consistent

now I can’t see the captions or dates in search results which means I have to tap on each video to check what it is and when it is.

Please bring this back to photos search results.

Also I’ll add that because the captions don’t transfer to other services like Google photos, I’ve invested to expand my iCloud storage to keep them all in iCloud.

If I can’t search by caption, there’s no incentive for me to keep my photos and videos in iCloud. I might as well move them to another service.

It’s ridiculous! Why have a caption option if you can’t search it!!!

Hello, I have an iPhone 16 pro and I’ve been having a mixed experience with photo search. On one hand I can’t search for a photo I know I have of my daughter in a red dress by typing “red”, “dress” or even her name “Scarlett” etc. on the other hand I could find a random specific photo of me by typing “reading a book”. I hope this issue is fixed with the next update. The bones are there they just need to be tweaked a bit. I was able to find photos by searching dates both in the 00/00/0000 and spelling it out July 00 2023. Hope your mess gets fixed soon.

Totally agree. These features need to return ASAP!

Unfortunately it doesn’t help with the thousands of pics I have already tagged for work purposes.

This is the worst update. Everything I’ve organised like important document, plans, job specific photos all gone. Not an improvement. Whose idea was this. What’s the point of a caption now.

Momm1m1lkjuggz wrote: … I can’t search for a photo I know I have of my daughter in a red dress by typing “red”, “dress”

I did a search for Red Dress and got this:

Lots of red dresses. I wonder if you waited long enough for Photos to complete the scans.

On the other hand, Caption only works if you include the first words in the caption, which is weird and nearly useless.

Speaking of counter productive, ranting on here does no one any good. But what would help is if someone suggested that you let Apple know, here:

Feedback - Photos - Apple

I have also experienced this frustrating phenomenon. Try adding a TITLE to the photo, something that's brief, but specific to the shot. I did it and not only did the photo show up in my photo search, it also appeared in the SPOTLIGHT search.

Years of labelling photos and Apple has no explanation on how to search captions!!! Why won’t they fix this???

Thanks of the response, JLSeth. Yes, I know and I have the same dilemma. What I offered is not a fix, rather a way around it — something I stumbled onto while trying varying options. Even it is a cumbersome move, as the title box doesn't readily appear when first shooting the photo. Opening the photo afterward, you click on the INFO button to enter the TITLE.

Dude. Apple needs to fix this NOW. I am so upset with this update. I hate it so much. I am gonna stop using my iPhone if they don't fix this. I hate the fact you can't search by caption anymore because I REFUSE TO HAVE TO SCROLL THROUGH A MILLION PHOTOS TO TRY TO FIND ONE SPECIFIC PHOTO. And in Messages, sometimes IT WON'T LET ME SEARCH MESSAGES BY KEYWORD!!!! When I put a word in the search box in messages, sometimes it will just show me links and pictures featuring that keyword AND NOT MESSAGES WITH THAT WORD. This update is GARBAGE and needs to be reverted!