"Unicorn app" to tag photos...

[kirbyrun]

I realize I may be looking for something that doesn't exist, but figured I'd check in with y'all and see if anyone has stumbled across this...

I have a TON of clip art/stock photos that I bought a number of years ago. Like, 100 GB worth.

I would love to find an app that would ingest all of these images and use AI to tag them so that it would be easier to search. It's hundreds and hundreds of files and it would make my life a lot easier if I didn't have to scroll through them all to find what I'm looking for.

Originally, I tried uploading some of them to Google Photos, figuring I'd let Google do the work for me, but it was surprisingly awful. Images with people in them did not come up when I searched "man," "woman," or "person," for example.

Is there such an app out there? I throw myself on the mercy of the the hive-mind...

 

[gilby101]

macOS and Spotlight do this for you. Unless you have disabled Spotlight indexing on the volume with the photos, macOS indexes them in the background. Indexing may take some time - only does it when connected to power and the system not too busy - leave it overnight.

To search, you can use Command-Space Spotlight, but I prefer to search in Finder. Go to where the phots are stored and start searching by content. Here is search for "waterfall":

It would be fair to call this AI functionality built into recent macOS. Apple calls it "Machine Learning".

Works well with some content, but pretty poor at distinguishing sheep from goats. So results vary.

 

[kirbyrun]

macOS and Spotlight do this for you. Unless you have disabled Spotlight indexing on the volume with the photos, macOS indexes them in the background. Indexing may take some time - only does it when connected to power and the system not too busy - leave it overnight.

To search, you can use Command-Space Spotlight, but I prefer to search in Finder. Go to where the phots are stored and start searching by content. Here is search for "waterfall":

View attachment 2367250

It would be fair to call this AI functionality built into recent macOS. Apple calls it "Machine Learning".

Works well with some content, but pretty poor at distinguishing sheep from goats. So results vary.

That is amazing! Sadly, it's not working for me. My images are all on an external drive, but I don't have it excluded from Spotlight. When I search in a folder for, say, a pineapple (and I know a pineapple is in that folder), nothing comes up.

Not sure what I'm doing/have done wrong. But damn, if that worked for me, it'd be just what I needed!

 

[colocolo]

I think they need to be added in one of Apple's apps; in the example above, lightroom, or you can just add them to Photos. It will take some hours, but eventually you will be able to search either inside Photos or directly in Spotlight.

 

[gilby101]

My images are all on an external drive, but I don't have it excluded from Spotlight.

How is the drive formatted? Mine are APFS format. I don't know how important this is, but I suspect there are some restrictions.

Go to the Terminal app, and at the command prompt enter "mdutil -sa" (without the "). Does it say "Indexing enabled" for the volume with your photos?

 

[kirbyrun]

I think they need to be added in one of Apple's apps; in the example above, lightroom, or you can just add them to Photos. It will take some hours, but eventually you will be able to search either inside Photos or directly in Spotlight. View attachment 2367492

Ah. I'm really trying avoid mixing these business-related images with my personal and family photos, so I haven't put them into Photos.

But now I'm wondering... What if I did a separate Photos library with just the stock art? Let it get indexed... Would Spotlight then be able to find the images if they're not in the active Photos library?

How is the drive formatted? Mine are APFS format. I don't know how important this is, but I suspect there are some restrictions.

Go to the Terminal app, and at the command prompt enter "mdutil -sa" (without the "). Does it say "Indexing enabled" for the volume with your photos?

Yep, "Indexing enabled."

 

[chown33]

Ah. I'm really trying avoid mixing these business-related images with my personal and family photos, so I haven't put them into Photos.

But now I'm wondering... What if I did a separate Photos library with just the stock art? Let it get indexed... Would Spotlight then be able to find the images if they're not in the active Photos library?

I'd try it and see what happens.

I suggest using a small number (max 10) of very obvious images. If it works out well, increase to maybe 100 images with overlapping content, then do test searches to see what comes out.