So...why can't Photos on iOS search for photos by title?

[usagora]

This has bothered me for quite some time, but I've never gotten around to posting on this forum about it. All my photos are neatly organized and titled in Photos on macOS, but when I sync them to my iPhone and try to find a photo by its title in Photos on iOS, it doesn't work. It only indexes the album names. It also bothers me that you can't display titles in iOS. In searching the web, the latter appears to be a consensus, but I've read some say that tiltes are still searchable even though they aren't visible. But any time I try searching for a title, I get no results.

Can you imagine if Music on iOS didn't let you search for song titles? This is how stupid I think this is. Am I missing something or is this just some really bizarre, well-known shortcoming of the Photos app on iOS? I just don't understand why it wouldn't mirror the macOS app in terms of basic functionality like the Music app on iOS does. I mean, obviously Apple thinks users find it useful to be able to search for photo titles since it allows you to do this on macOS (and it works beautifully), so why would the mobile app be any different?

Any insight would be appreciated! I'd hate to have to use a third party app to get something so simple accomplished that should work in the native app.

 

[ferrarr]

You would have to edit the metadata for each photo. There is too much unknown information, when there is just a name on an image file.

Have you ever changed the name of any music files? iTunes/Music has a “lookup” service to identify music files.

So there is a big difference in the way each app organizes the media they organize.


Sent from my iPad using Mac-Forums

 

[usagora]

You would have to edit the metadata for each photo. There is too much unknown information, when there is just a name on an image file.

Have you ever changed the name of any music files? iTunes/Music has a “lookup” service to identify music files.

So there is a big difference in the way each app organizes the media they organize.


Sent from my iPad using Mac-Forums

I don't understand what you're saying. Changing the photo title IS changing its metadata... Again, the search works in Photos on macOS, so I see absolutely no reason why it can't work on the iOS version. And my photo files names are usually the same as the title, but those don't show up either in search results either.

And, yes, I have all my music files neatly tagged as well. All my music is local on my phone. I don't do cloud-based services for music. Never gotten into that. No lookup service is being used, because I can search my music library from the iOS Music app whether I'm online or not (not to mention I have lectures and my own personal recordings in there too that are searchable by title, even though they obviously aren't in any online database of music).

 

[usagora]

Anyone have a solution to this issue or maybe a workaround? Why would photo titles be rendered useless and invisible on iOS? I mean, you have all these high-powered editing tools but it can't search for a photo's name/title? Just seems bizarre to me.

 

[pm-r]

why can't Photos on iOS search for photos by title

I do not have an answer for you but I tend to feel your pain and fail to understand why the file couldn't be found by name etc., but you may be able to get some Help or maybe understand why and how it doesn't work as expected by using your Topic phrase For a Google search. I.e.:
why can't Photos on iOS search for photos by title - Google Search

Some of the hits seem to have some suggestions I would never have thought of. But I guess one has to start thinking well outside the box, And start thinking like the software developers.

Personally, I have found the search capabilities of IOS to be almost absolutely atrocious if not almost useless and lacking.





- Patrick
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[usagora]

Thanks, Patrick. I have Googled this in the past and currently and haven't really found an answer that made sense (and then there's the dismissive people on the Apple forums that just say "We're just fellow users - send Apple feedback if you want your voice ot be heard" LOL!!!) but I'll look again. As I mentioned, I had seen where someone posted that you could search by photo title, but that you couldn't see the photo titles on the photos. But that doesn't work for me.

If you found something that made sense from a developer's perspective (shouldn't the developer have the user in mind?), please link it here. If iOS is increasingly being touted as a notebook computer replacement, the apps need to be able to do basic things that the macOS versions can.

Guess I may have to just go all-out Windows-style and export all my photos to OneDrive in folders because you can actually search for file names with their iOS app (what a novel idea!).

 

[pm-r]

How about this...???:

If you regularly need to determine an iPhone photo filename, an app is probably the best option.
With ViewExif, you can view metadata on every photo you take on your iPhone, including file names, sizes and dimensions.
PowerPhotos makes it easy to search for specific photos by filename, description, keywords and faces.

Access Denied

Access Denied

I have no idea how the applications work.

I don't use my old iOS IPad Pro very much, and Apple's Photos.appI even less, but I have always wondered how and why the iOS is so lacking in some things I would call necessary and basic features.

EDIT:
I have no idea why the forum is changing the legitimate URL to "Access Denied" and it Works just fine for me.

The second one is a TinyURL I tried using, The forum inserts "Access Denied" For it as well.

This forum seems to do some strange things lately.




- Patrick
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[usagora]

How about this...???:




Access Denied

Yeah, that's just telling you how to get the filename of a photo you have already located on the iOS Photos app. I'm wanting to search to find the photo itself using the title (or filename) as the criterion. The article seems to indicate the "solution" is to transfer them to your Mac or use a third-party app.

If I want to find a song on my iPhone, I literally just swipe down on the home screen and search for it...boom (as Steve Jobs was fond of saying).

If I want to find a photo on my iPhone, apparently that's impossible. Not only to I have to open the Photos app, I have to then manually browse multiple albums to find it. That disparity astounds me.

Guess I'll just export all my Photos to OneDrive as I mentioned before, because I already use that app for other things. Maybe one day Apple will fix this.

 

[lucytaylor01]

This is just an idea but I am not sure about this. You can change the Exif data of photos similar to previous one in mac OS. Then you and search it for particular title.