Apple Photos + Faces + Sync Across Devices?

[gigapocket1]

Majority of my Apple devices are still Scanning my iCloud photos library. I know that photo scans are done on each device. But if I tag a person on Mac or iOS in the peoples albums, does it sync that facial match across devices? Can’t find any concrete evidence of this. Would test but like I said, they are still doing their own recognition.

 

[kaardowiq]

Majority of my Apple devices are still Scanning my iCloud photos library. I know that photo scans are done on each device. But if I tag a person on Mac or iOS in the peoples albums, does it sync that facial match across devices? Can’t find any concrete evidence of this. Would test but like I said, they are still doing their own recognition.

Yes, it does. My tagged faces are synced across.

 

[michalm]

I just wanted to ask this… For me, it does not seem to be the case. Each device doing its own thing - I have two iOS devices and two macOS and looking at People, the front page syncs, but individual numbers of recognised faces vary greatly.

Anyone else experiencing this?

 

[TimFL1]

It syncs face confirmations, not actual Face data. Every time you confirm a Face, it syncs as „this was confirmed to be Xyz“. That synced data is then fed into your devices face detection algorithm to recreate an identical people album.

I noticed that iOS 15 / macOS 12 seems to greatly mess with face data across different devices. Whenever my 2018 Intel MBP does face detection, it runs rampage in my people album and messes up certain people (e.g. it routinely splits me into 2 different people, one being unnamed).

 

[michalm]

It syncs face confirmations, not actual Face data. Every time you confirm a Face, it syncs as „this was confirmed to be Xyz“. That synced data is then fed into your devices face detection algorithm to recreate an identical people album.

I noticed that iOS 15 / macOS 12 seems to greatly mess with face data across different devices. Whenever my 2018 Intel MBP does face detection, it runs rampage in my people album and messes up certain people (e.g. it routinely splits me into 2 different people, one being unnamed).

Thanks for this! The behaviour reflects what you have described.

May I just ask, how did you find out it works like that? The documentation I was able to get to is ... thin.. I was hoping it would be doing some kind of EXIF sync with Contact data. Oh well... No reason to even attempt to clean up the mess

 

[KD7IWP]

It syncs face confirmations, not actual Face data. Every time you confirm a Face, it syncs as „this was confirmed to be Xyz“. That synced data is then fed into your devices face detection algorithm to recreate an identical people album.

I noticed that iOS 15 / macOS 12 seems to greatly mess with face data across different devices. Whenever my 2018 Intel MBP does face detection, it runs rampage in my people album and messes up certain people (e.g. it routinely splits me into 2 different people, one being unnamed).

I agree, this is happening with me. I'm curios if the problem will go away once I get a Mac with Apple silicone. I'm currently running a Mac Pro 6,1 (trash can) and an iPhone XS and they seem to fight each other. For example, there is a photo of one of my daughters that I set as a key photo for her on the Mac or on the iPhone and then a few hours later I come back and it's no longer the key photo, in fact, my Mac doesn't even have a name for the face in the photo any longer. I also find that when I go to my Mac and confirm additional faces I'll sometimes see a photo pop up that I know I have already confirmed in the past.

One theory I have is that ALL of the photos are on my Mac whereas I optimize storage on my iPhone which makes me think that the dataset available to both devices isn't the same (even if the scanning algorithm is the same).

 

[TimFL1]

I agree, this is happening with me. I'm curios if the problem will go away once I get a Mac with Apple silicone. I'm currently running a Mac Pro 6,1 (trash can) and an iPhone XS and they seem to fight each other. For example, there is a photo of one of my daughters that I set as a key photo for her on the Mac or on the iPhone and then a few hours later I come back and it's no longer the key photo, in fact, my Mac doesn't even have a name for the face in the photo any longer. I also find that when I go to my Mac and confirm additional faces I'll sometimes see a photo pop up that I know I have already confirmed in the past.

One theory I have is that ALL of the photos are on my Mac whereas I optimize storage on my iPhone which makes me think that the dataset available to both devices isn't the same (even if the scanning algorithm is the same).

I upgraded to a M1 Max 16“ a few months ago and haven‘t had any issues since. I also use optimize storage on all of my devices except my iPhone (cause of mobile data concerns).

 

[ososX]

I upgraded to a M1 Max 16“ a few months ago and haven‘t had any issues since. I also use optimize storage on all of my devices except my iPhone (cause of mobile data concerns).

I have an M2 MBP 16’’ and there is no methodological synchronization. While the people list is updated across all devices, the recognition takes place individually on each device. It’s a real mess, even if I identify a person (which is already in the people list) on the iPad the information won’t be synchronized across the devices.

 

[gigapocket1]

Weird…. It’s 2024. I did a Google search and came across a thread that I have no recollection of creating. Still having this issue though, 3 years later.

 

[gigapocket1]

Update: looks like it doesn’t sync changes made between iDevices.. But does sync changes from Mac down to iOS devices via iCloud.