Photos app adds wrong location to pictures (paste coordinates)

Question

Level 1

4 points

Photos app adds wrong location to pictures (paste coordinates)

Hello,

Normally, the pictures I import into the Photos app are from my iPhone and they come with GPS geotag, but sometimes I have to add pictures from other sources to my library, with no GPS data.

Luckily, Photos app allows to manually add the location to these pictures. You open the information box and add the missing data into the "location" field. You can use broad terms like "Spain" or "London", or be more specific with an exact address, the name of that specific location or even the geographic coordinates (e.g. 43.31647983008836, -1.9879468761010053).

Actually, if I'm not wrong, any other format of geographic location has to be "translated" into coordinates by the app to add it to the picture's metadata.

Well, since I updated to macOS Sequoia, when I paste any coordinates to this field the app interprets I'm trying to write an address and gives me a myriad of different options, all wrong (wrong city, country, etc.). It used to work seamlessly with previous versions.

Is anybody else having the same issue and/or can share any thoughts?

Thanks!

Posted on Nov 18, 2024 7:52 AM

Reply

Answer 1

Top-ranking reply

Richard.Taylor

Level 6

10,488 points

Nov 18, 2024 8:50 AM in response to sebacop

I just played around a bit-- I entered an address into Maps, copied the Latitude and Longitude, and pasted that into the location in the info window of a picture. It worked fine-- found the right place.

Coordinates in Maps look like this: 29.42579° N, 98.48612° W, and that's what worked. The same entry produced the wrong results when I removed the degree symbol and the hemisphere values, and gave it 29.42579, 98.48612. The first one is correctly the Alamo in San Antonio; the second ends up near Houston, somewhere. The degree symbols don't actually matter-- it seems to need the hemisphere. And, by the way, minus signs are ignored.

Reply

Answer 2

léonie

Level 10

197,387 points

Nov 19, 2024 1:10 AM in response to sebacop

There is one more difference I noticed.

Photos is now using the number format as we have set it in the System settings.

In the earlier system versions I had to use the decimal point for the latitude and longitude, even if the region has been set to Germany and number format has been set to use a decimal comma for example I had to enter "69.64746, 18.95705" instead of "69,64746° N, 18,95705° O".

And with the primary language set to German I have now to use the letter "O" for eastern longitudes. Previously the system respected the international convention never to use "O" (Osten in German) but to stick with the English "E" for East. The "O" is dangerous and confusing, because it would mean "West" in French (Ouest).

I will stick with using the minus sign to indicate western longitudes, because I am frequently changing the language settings for Photos.

Reply

Answer 3

sebacop Author

Level 1

4 points

Nov 18, 2024 11:27 PM in response to Richard.Taylor

I don't know why I was missing the coordinates (e.g. 43,31709° N, 1,98759° O) appearing in the details of any marked location (maybe it wasn't there in previous versions of Maps? or maybe Photos didn't understand that format in previous versions?).

I used to go to the "···" menu and select "Copy coordinates", which uses the +/- format (43.317087, -1.987593) and for whatever reason Photos doesn't understand it anymore. It did understand "43.317087 N, -1.987593" though.

Anyway... Problem solved! Thanks!

Reply

Answer 4

Nov 19, 2024 7:40 AM in response to léonie

The O could also be read as 0, making it even more confusing.

The - sign seems very odd. If I enter into Photos location:

29.42579° N, 98.48612° W I get the Alamo,

29.42579° N, 98.48612° (no W) I get Tebet,

29.42579° N, -98.48612° W I get Tebet

29.42579° , 98.48612° I get S Africa,

29.42579° , -98.48612° I get S Africa

-29.42579° , -98.48612° I get S Africa

-29.42579° , 98.48612° I get Singapore

I also keep getting a place near Tyler, TX where I recently took a bunch of pictures, and which has nothing to do with the Alamo. The only foolproof method seems to ignore signs and use N S E & W (or the equivalent German.)

Fascinating…

Reply