I'm trying to add names to photos in Photos, and it works, except for my friend Andy . His photos all appear 'unnamed'. So I click on 'unnamed' and type 'Andy'. A list of all the Andys in my address book appears, and I click on his name. Nothing happens. The list goes away, but Andy is still named 'unnamed'.
MacOS 26.0.1
MacBook Pro 14"
[Edited by Moderator]
MacBook Pro 14″, macOS 26.0
You wrote:
"A list of all the Andys in my address book appears, and I click on his name. Nothing happens. The list goes away, but Andy is still named 'unnamed'."
This can happen, if Andy's photos have been merged with someone else. To fix this, try to create a new "People+Pets" album for Andy, without using his Contact card. Enter a slightly different nickname where it is showing "unnamed", then hit "Return" and ignore the suggested Andys.
Can you create a new Andy album this way? If you can, check all People albums for other people, if there are some misnamed faces of Andy and reject the wrong name. Then assign the new name for Andy.
You can switch back to the original name from the Contacts, once the new album for Andy is working again.
Try to
Richard.Taylor wrote:
If Photos thinks that an "unnamed" face has some of the right features, it may come up when you choose "Review More Photos."
https://discussions.apple.com/content/attachment/065cfd4c-17d8-4272-aab9-9e4c8a3731cf
If you haven't found this, it's sort of hidden in the Person Album-- just scroll to see below all the pictures.
Nope, still can't find it.
To fix this, try to create a new "People+Pets" album for Andy, without using his Contact card.
I don't know how to do this. If I click on the + sign next to "People+Pets" and choose "Add People & Pets" I see a box which invites me to "Select People". There are two people pictured, neither of whom is Andy, and I can't see a way to select anyone except the two people pictured.
Richard.Taylor wrote:
Find a picture of Andy that has a name, and change the name to Andrew. If that works, then there will be a new People album named Andrew.
I can't find a picture of Andy that has a name. All of the pictures of him are "unnamed".
That is great, Martin.
Have you any idea, why the Photos Library needed repairing?
A repair may become necessary for several reasons:
Could any of this apply?
No, none of these apply. It's the library I've always used, and it's on my home drive. But at least it works.
Now, many of the faces in my library are still recognised. But I'm waiting now for Photos to acknowledge that other people (with faces clearly shown) are recognised as faces. When that process is complete, I'm sure I'll be back with more questions!
Sorry – all these comments are getting out of order, and it's hard to follow the thread. Possibly my fault for posting answers where it would be easier just to add a new comment.
Anyhow, as noted above, I've rebuilt (and restored) the database once again, and I'll give it a couple of days to sort itself out before I post again. In the meantime, I note that it's not just the database of faces which needs rebuilding but also the search engine, too. (Is this based on the Spotlight index?) Anyway, Searching for something – anything – yields no results.
More in a couple of days.
Martin S Taylor wrote: I note that it's not just the database of faces
It's not a database of faces-- it's the database. It has all the information, including face stuff. Everything is carried over from the source database except, hopefully, the errors.
The posts here appear in chronological order no matter who you respond to. The choice to respond to léonie or me, for instance, still sends emails to both of us, so it just helps each of us figure out what question the other is answering. And the funny quote thing helps with that-- for clarity (I hope) I usually edit a quote down to the question I'm answering. But everybody on the thread gets everything.
Martin, have you discovered the "Sort by" menu on the first page of the discussions?
If you do not change this, a discussion will be sorted by "Rank", but you can switch this to a chronological order.
There are also Preference setting, where you can set the sort order to "oldest", then you will have a chronological sort order as soon as you sign into the communities.
léonie wrote: Martin, have you discovered the "Sort by" menu on the first page of the discussions?
If you do not change this, a discussion will be sorted by "Rank", but you can switch this to a chronological order. …
I'm always forgetting that
The posts here appear in chronological order
is not always true. I, like Martin, get confused whenever I open these pages without signing in.
It's also confusing when someone refers to "the one above." Since I do "newest first," it usually isn't "above" for me.
It's not a database of faces-- it's the database. It has all the information, including face stuff. Everything is carried over from the source database except, hopefully, the errors.
What about when I search in the search box at the top? Where is it searching? Does it only take information from the database, so that's where it looks for the names of the photos (both the original files and the names I've given them), keywords, face stuff etc. etc? Or does it somehow also search in the Spotlight database of the whole user area?
What I'm puzzled by (well, one of many things) is that there are hundreds of photos where my face is recognised and tagged as "Martin", yet only three of them show up when I search for "Martin" in the search box.
Yes, this is exactly why I was asking. When you search for 'Richard' you get 1400 hits. I search for 'Martin' and get five – one of me, one of the town of Martin in Slovakia, and three of my cat. I understand the first two, but don't understand why my cat shows up (there are no keywords, or anything to suggest he's connected with Martin), and I don't understand why none of other zillion photos of me (or my friend David, whose surname is my first name) appear.
Maybe when it's finished indexing?
Do you mean Settings>General>Reset Suggested People & Pets ? I don't think it resets the People & Pets part of the database. And I Hate (capital H) the way many apps and Photos in particular often 'suggest' what I might like. So I'm not going near that.
However, I have solved the mystery of why three photos of my cat appear: he's climbing on my shelves, and among all the toy bears, electronic games, clocks, spare batteries and whatnot there's a tiny (5cm) bottle of sand which has my name written in a different colour sand inside. Astonishingly, Photos had picked up on this.
I also found a photo which wouldn't allow me to add a keyword. Putting the cursor in the appropriate place and typing did nothing. Just that one photo.
Anyhow, let's wait until it's completely finished indexing and see what happens.
Oh, one more question: if a face is marked as 'unnamed', is that Photos's final decision, or might it realise who the face is during later indexing? There are some 'unnamed' faces which are pretty similar to those it has correctly identified.
Not the bottom of "People & Pets;" rather, at the bottom of a particular person's album. I showed the bottom of the People album for my great aunt (I think) Altha. It has her name, Altha J, at the top left.
Richard.Taylor wrote:
You should really do the keyword thing with names in case naming gets worse!
Martin S Taylor wrote: …Nope, still can't find it.
Down below the pictures in the People Album:
Can't add a certain person's name to his photo
