Inconsistent search by street address in Photos app on iPhone

I have lots of photos, thus, I rely on search function a lot.

however, lately (about a year or so), the search function is not working properly.

i used to be able to search based on street address on the photos (using metadata), and sometime the search works, other times it cannot find the photos.

This is really frustrating, why apple keeps changing the behaviour of its app in the iphone????

please stick to one behaviour & limit, so I can use the tool (ie photo search) properly.

if the intention is to add feature, then dont break the previous feature!


[Re-Titled by Moderator]

Original Title: Search photos inconsistent

iPhone 12 mini, iOS 18

Posted on Sep 28, 2025 5:22 AM

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Question marked as Top-ranking reply

Posted on Sep 29, 2025 9:14 AM

If your pictures don't show up in the Mac collection

then they may not be recording the GPS values, or the location information may get stripped in pictures added to Photos through emails and texts or from web sites.


When location is included, the GPS data is recorded in longitude and latitude, not as a street addresses. Named locations are interpreted from internet tables. Searching by street address will be finicky, but searching for a city should work.


The best deal, really, is to include useful items in the caption to help with searches.

3 replies
Question marked as Top-ranking reply

Sep 29, 2025 9:14 AM in response to gita219

If your pictures don't show up in the Mac collection

then they may not be recording the GPS values, or the location information may get stripped in pictures added to Photos through emails and texts or from web sites.


When location is included, the GPS data is recorded in longitude and latitude, not as a street addresses. Named locations are interpreted from internet tables. Searching by street address will be finicky, but searching for a city should work.


The best deal, really, is to include useful items in the caption to help with searches.

Sep 28, 2025 7:34 AM in response to gita219

gita219 wrote: … i used to be able to search based on street address on the photos (using metadata), and sometime the search works, other times it cannot find the photos.

The usual way to search by location is to use the Map view in Collections, perhaps with the Maps app. Does that work?

please stick to one behaviour & limit, so I can use the tool (ie photo search) properly.
if the intention is to add feature, then dont break the previous feature!

Perhaps you've misunderstood. We are not Apple; folks who read these posts are just users like you. Apple engineers don’t read the stuff, here. Some of us hang around here from time to time in case our experience may help someone. If you would like to make suggestions to Apple, go here:

Feedback - Photos - Apple

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Inconsistent search by street address in Photos app on iPhone

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