Unlike “Google Photos,” Apple’s native “Photos” app is closed to Apple’s own ecosystem. And I completely understand those who choose this first option or any other alternative to store their photos. However, I also firmly believe in Potential of the Apple application in many facets, including editing with improvements like those built into iOS 17.
Although there is one function that I think is often underestimated, it is the search engine. It’s the one located in the right tab of the application and which can go unnoticed because it is mixed with suggestions. However, It’s the best way to find any photo or video in seconds. And all thanks to the artificial intelligence that Apple uses in the system without us realizing it.
The Photos app lets you search for virtually anything
As you will see in the previous screenshot, in the ‘Photos’ application I accumulate more than 8,000 videos and 75,000 photos (most of them synchronized with iCloud, because it is inconceivable for the 128 GB of my iPhone ). Although the majority are well organized by type, the truth is that The quickest way to find the content I’m looking for at any time is the search engine.
The search engine locates both photographs and videos stored on the iPhone, regardless of whether they are contents captured by the camera or files received or downloaded from the Internet.
This, as I said in the introduction, is found in the form of a search box at the bottom of the “Search” section of the “Photos” app. And it is possible to find all types of content there with searches distributed as follows:
- By dates: We can search from specific dates with their day, month and year numbers, up to whole months and years. The one I use a lot is to look for the date we’re in without a year, like “February 3” so it reminds me that I had a day like today in previous years.
- By type: We can search only photos or only videos, but in all of this we can specify by searching for photographs taken in portrait mode, videos taken in slow motion and more.
- For the people: our iPhone is also capable of identifying people. Simply open any photo you appear in, swipe up and tap the icon with your face. We can give names to these albums so that they can be located. The key to the search engine is being able to directly type in that person’s name and search for all the photos and videos they appear in.
- By animal: Just like for humans, animal recognition was added in iOS 17, so we can also use the search engine to locate all the content in which they appear.
- By location: If we remember taking a photo at a certain location, we can search for it with this tag. You can use either the name of the city in general or a specific location like a park or restaurant.
- By objects: Yes, iPhone is capable of recognizing all objects. So we can search for photographs and videos of buildings, cars, flowers, soda cans, pizzas… Anything we want.
- By circumstances: In addition to objects, the iPhone is also able to identify certain situations such as holidays or seasons of the year. Therefore, we can also give free rein to our imagination in research.
- By text message : Thanks to the text detection functions added in iOS 15, we can find photographs in which a certain word or phrase appears, ideal for finding certain documents or scenes in which we remember that a poster or panel appears with them .
It is better to combine several searches
Previously, I described the main types of searches that the “Photos” application allows us. But the best is to combine them and perform much more specific searches
For example, let’s say we want to find a photo that we took in portrait mode of our dog Toby in the town of El Boalo and in 2022. Well, just search for the following tags ‘Portraits’, ‘Toby’, ‘El Boalo’ and ‘2022’. And we would have it.
I have to say that It is also not necessary to fill everything with labels, since two could be enough. From my personal experience, this is ultimately the most practical way to not confuse the iPhone too much, given that we may be making a mistake in some labels thinking that it was a type different from what it is and this frustrates us in the research.
And now you’ll wonder, Does this search engine sometimes fail? And I will tell you that yes, but on very rare occasions. I’ve been using it for years and I can assure you that it has almost never failed me. When this has been done it has been due to very particular circumstances like looking for a photo of my dog and he actually appears half when glancing at the image there is little light and he is unrecognizable.
So, if you use the “Photos” app on your iPhone, I highly recommend you to try this search engine. And that’s it It can even save you from having to organize your photossomething that I also recommend, but which is sometimes complicated when you have a lot of photos.
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