Tiger, iPhoto keywords not picked up by Spotlight

[diehlr]

Since installing Tiger, I have run into some snags with Spotlight. I have iPhoto 5 installed and have been labeling my photos with keywords and comments, and none of them are picked up in Spotlight searches. Has anyone else run into this issue?

[toneloco2881]

Since installing Tiger, I have run into some snags with Spotlight. I have iPhoto 5 installed and have been labeling my photos with keywords and comments, and none of them are picked up in Spotlight searches. Has anyone else run into this issue?


Just a thought but have you upgraded to the latest iPhoto version(5.02). I noticed when i did this it created a file named iphoto.ispot in my iPhoto library. With that being said I've had no issues with Spotlight finding my tagged images.

[Androit]

Just a thought but have you upgraded to the latest iPhoto version(5.02). I noticed when i did this it created a file named iphoto.ispot in my iPhoto library. With that being said I've had no issues with Spotlight finding my tagged images.


Wow, thats great to hear. I was worried about that.

[mingisback]

I have the latest iPhoto version(5.02) installed under Tiger and he's right...

Tiger's spotlight feature doesn't search the keywords and comments attached to images in iPhoto.

I hope this is resolved in 10.4.1

[toneloco2881]

Ummm.... All I can do is once again state my success with iPhoto and Spotlight. I don't believe my case is abnormally unique, and I'm the only one who has spotlight integration. Mine works instantaneous by the way. Meaning, if I edit the comment section for a picture in iPhoto then perform a spotlight query, the result shows up immediately. Sometimes it's quirky, and I'll have to either browse around in iPhoto, or restart it for the picture to get indexed, and show up in Spotlight. I know that i had an issue with Spotlight not finding some lower-level finder items but after a system restart, all seems well. Perhaps im just lucky :confused: :)

[mingisback]

i'm thrilled with ur success... but that doesn't fix the problem.

[Androit]

i'm thrilled with ur success... but that doesn't fix the problem.


Does your library contain the " iphoto.ispot" file that he was talking about? Try rebuilding the library. Start up iPhoto while holding down command and option and then it'll give you options on how to rebuild it. Mind you I don't have Tiger and I have no idea if this will work. But it's possible rebuilding the database will fix whatever hiccup spotlight is having reading the metadata from the iPhoto index.

[adam1185]

Do this. I guarantee it will work.

Make sure you have iphoto 5.0.2 installed. If you still get nothing, apply a dummy keyword to all the photos in your iphoto library (for example 'spotlight') Spotlight should now find all your photos with whatever keywords you had previously applied to them. Now you can remove that dummy keyword from all your photos in iphoto and everyone should work great.

[Inspector Lee]

I have the latest iPhoto version(5.02) installed under Tiger and he's right...

Tiger's spotlight feature doesn't search the keywords and comments attached to images in iPhoto.

I hope this is resolved in 10.4.1

Yeah, this will wreck my camp. I have many many keywords attached and I have blipped all of the photo names because it can get awfully redundant and aesthetically slipshod. Although not absolutely critical, it would have been nice to gain access via spotlight.

Still, I won't be getting Tiger until mid-May. I have a vacation coming up where I won't be taking my system so I'll let everyone else iron out the wrinkles for me.

[adam1185]

Yeah, this will wreck my camp. I have many many keywords attached and I have blipped all of the photo names because it can get awfully redundant and aesthetically slipshod. Although not absolutely critical, it would have been nice to gain access via spotlight.

Still, I won't be getting Tiger until mid-May. I have a vacation coming up where I won't be taking my system so I'll let everyone else iron out the wrinkles for me.

If you follow what I said above, it will work. No worries.

[mac-er]

Oh, for God's sake...

Are you people not reading what toneloco2881 is saying?? (I really don't think its that hard to understand).

If you install the last update to iPhoto that was sent out via Software Update, it will fix the iPhoto/Spotlight problem.

10.4.1 won't fix it because it has already been fixed with the last iPhoto update.

[adam1185]

Oh, for God's sake...

Are you people not reading what toneloco2881 is saying?? (I really don't think its that hard to understand).

If you install the last update to iPhoto that was sent out via Software Update, it will fix the iPhoto/Spotlight problem.

10.4.1 won't fix it because it has already been fixed with the last iPhoto update.

Some people have applied the update but it still doesn't work completely, but doing what i said above will fix it for good.

[mingisback]

i'll try that when i get off work and let you know how that works.

.... thanx adam.

[Chris Grande]

For those of you who have this working does it also show albums in the list? and when photos show up how do they? File name or by the name that you gave them in iPhoto. Also when you select one of these photos does it just open the photo in say Preview or does it open iPhoto and take you to the photo?

[loOd]

I found a trick that worked for me, others might be interested:

once tiger is installed and spotlight active in the background, every NEW iPhoto comments is indexed correctly. Spotlight manage to browse them.

Considering this point I thought of a simple trick to force spotlight to read the old comments (made before Tiger was installed) : simply select the pictures you want to refresh, then group changes, comments and here I just put whatever character ';' for example (blank doesn't work). After this manipulation each photo is updated and spotlight is then up to date.

I hope apple will provide a clean fix though.
cheers

[adam1185]

I found a trick that worked for me, others might be interested:

once tiger is installed and spotlight active in the background, every NEW iPhoto comments is indexed correctly. Spotlight manage to browse them.

Considering this point I thought of a simple trick to force spotlight to read the old comments (made before Tiger was installed) : simply select the pictures you want to refresh, then group changes, comments and here I just put whatever character ';' for example (blank doesn't work). After this manipulation each photo is updated and spotlight is then up to date.

I hope apple will provide a clean fix though.
cheers

i already mentioned that above

[mkrishnan]

In a related vein, has anyone tried this:

- In spotlight, use a search term that will ID a *photo album* in iPhoto
- The album will come up as a hit under documents, without an icon
- Selecting it *will* trigger iPhoto, but for me, it always seems to push iPhoto into the full library view, showing photo 1 out of all the photos in iPhoto.

Anyone confirm this? I guess I could "trick" à la what Adam and loOd said and add the album name as a comment....

This isn't that useful in general, but I have a bunch of photos for the camp I volunteer at that are organized by the weekend. So if I want all stuff related to Boggy Creek's Heart Disease 2005 weekend, I can use spotlight terms, but I get the album and not the photos, and the album link doesn't really work....

[Applespider]

In a related vein, has anyone tried this:

- In spotlight, use a search term that will ID a *photo album* in iPhoto
- The album will come up as a hit under documents, without an icon
- Selecting it *will* trigger iPhoto, but for me, it always seems to push iPhoto into the full library view, showing photo 1 out of all the photos in iPhoto.


Yup - mine is doing the same but not in library mode, it opens in edit with the first picture in the library. If I search on an image's iPhoto comments/title etc, it opens the image but for some reason it still opens it in edit mode and not in the library.

[mkrishnan]

Yup - mine is doing the same but not in library mode, it opens in edit with the first picture in the library. If I search on an image's iPhoto comments/title etc, it opens the image but for some reason it still opens it in edit mode and not in the library.

It seems to go to edit for me too, sometimes, depending on what I was doing in iPhoto immediately previously, although not in a pattern I completely understand. :rolleyes: Thankfully for me, comment searching works fine -- if I get a match to an actual photo, iPhoto handles it correctly. I need to take the time to put all the kids' names in the comments!

[powerbook911]

I have a strange one guys. When I choose "edit in external editor" in iPhoto, it opens Photoshop, but it doesn't open the picture. This is driving me made, for I do this all the time. Any help? I'd appreciate it. thanks.

[mkrishnan]

I have a strange one guys. When I choose "edit in external editor" in iPhoto, it opens Photoshop, but it doesn't open the picture. This is driving me made, for I do this all the time. Any help? I'd appreciate it. thanks.

Did this appear with Tiger? If you drag and drop from iPhoto to PS, what happens? There are some threads (for which I searched and could not find! :() about an issue in CS where some people lose this ability -- the pic doesn't load anymore when its dropped on the dock icon -- I think. Not sure if there was a fix. Sorry to be so vague. :( I'm hoping I will pique someone else's memory about this.

[Applespider]

Here's the thread about the dock icons/double clicking (sounds like it might be a similar thing)

http://forums.macrumors.com/showthread.php?t=122608&highlight=adobe

[powerbook911]

Here's the thread about the dock icons/double clicking (sounds like it might be a similar thing)

http://forums.macrumors.com/showthread.php?t=122608&highlight=adobe

Many thanks . My answer was solved there.

[mkrishnan]

*high fives Applespider* :D

[lord_flash]

For those of us who didn't upgrade from iPhoto 4 (4.0.3 to be exact), does anyone know of a fix to get the metadata to appear in Spotlight. To be honest, if it doesn't then what's the point using iPhoto at all? Metadata from Adobe applications seems to work, after all. Shouldn't these be embedded into the files?

[chameeeleon]

I was glad it searched iPhoto keywords.
I just wish there was a way for iPhoto to automatically rename source picture files after the title you've given them in iPhoto. Spotlight gives me results like "img 0566436" which mean nothing to me, obviously requiring me to go to the full window and the little photo view. If they'd rename the files, or if Spotlight had an option to display the titles rather than the filename I'd be very happy.

[mkrishnan]

I was glad it searched iPhoto keywords.
I just wish there was a way for iPhoto to automatically rename source picture files after the title you've given them in iPhoto. Spotlight gives me results like "img 0566436" which mean nothing to me, obviously requiring me to go to the full window and the little photo view. If they'd rename the files, or if Spotlight had an option to display the titles rather than the filename I'd be very happy.

A pain, but you could select the entire library, export it with the by-title naming at full res, and re-import it... :( But I've noticed this about PDFs too -- sometimes I am in a hurry :rolleyes: and save PDF journal articles with the wacky code names that the document servers give them, instead of something intelligible. Spotlight makes it much easier to find the right one, since I'm only looking at two or three instead of twenty, but it's still hard to figure out whether I want 0XB523F55 or HR2599GFB991. :D

[Applespider]

For those of us who didn't upgrade from iPhoto 4 (4.0.3 to be exact), does anyone know of a fix to get the metadata to appear in Spotlight. To be honest, if it doesn't then what's the point using iPhoto at all? Metadata from Adobe applications seems to work, after all. Shouldn't these be embedded into the files?

The keywords aren't embedded in the iPhoto files. They're in a separate iPhoto file which iPhoto 5 has a plugin for that allows Spotlight to search them.

I did see a link somewhere (at work though so can't search history) for a script that someone had written which allowed you to put the iPhoto 4 comments into the Spotlight comments field in Get Info.

[jacg]

Worth noting: Tiger didn't seem to notice changes to comments in iPhoto 5.02 until after I repaired permissions.

[lord_flash]

The keywords aren't embedded in the iPhoto files. They're in a separate iPhoto file which iPhoto 5 has a plugin for that allows Spotlight to search them.

I did see a link somewhere (at work though so can't search history) for a script that someone had written which allowed you to put the iPhoto 4 comments into the Spotlight comments field in Get Info.

Yes indeed, it can be found at Automator World (http://www.automatorworld.com/2005/05/01/iphoto-4-to-spotlight/) but I'm not especially impressed yet. So far it doesn't seem to be able to handle more than about 3 files at once without hanging Automator. I think I'm going to have to learn how to do this programming myself (oh, and use Adobe software to attach metadata from now on).

[kbrumors]

Spotlight only seems to be picking up the kMDItemComment metadata from iPhoto images, which was not populated by iPhoto before v5 (maybe even v5.0.2). My pre-v5 library didn't have these tags populated and thus Spotlight didn't pick up anything unless I entered the comment with iPhoto v5.

To verify this issue, in Terminal, cd to a directory in your iPhoto library that contains images with comments, and run:

% mdls -name kMDItemComment * | grep -v '\-\-\-\-\-\-'

You should see an absence of output if you're having this problem.

The easy fix from Terminal is to cd to the root your iPhoto library (by default "~/Pictures/iPhoto Library" I believe?). This directory will contain the iPhoto.db file (among others).

After quitting iPhoto, cd to your library directory and run:

% mv -i iPhoto.db /tmp

If the rest of the procedure doesn't work, try:

% mv -i .i* iPhoto.* /tmp

When you restart iPhoto it will rebuild this file (give it a minute for larger libraries, and/or watch CPU usage) and populate the kMDItemComment tag. Your comments will instantly be viewable by Spotlight. You can also verify by re-running the mdls command above.

BTW, this tag is not in a separate file, it's stored in the extended attributes on a per-file basis.

Hope this helps -- quick and painless fix without batch-adding a comment character. :)

Cheers,
--
Ken.

[ifjake]

i'm not sure i understand what's going on. if you have iPhoto 04 and that's it, no going from 04 to 05 stuff, is there a way to get spotlight to catch the keywords of the photos of your library? does iPhoto 04 even assign keywords to the photos or is it just assigned in a little database file somewhere? the automater script isn't working for me. and besides, i use keywords, not comments.

i have iPhoto 04 and i want to use keywords and see these keywords come up in spotlight. is this even possible?

[kbrumors]

I was only talking about comments not showing up for Spotlight when using iPhoto 5. My guess is that the comment is a glorified keyword. If iPhoto 4 doesn't support extended attributes, I'm thinking Spotlight won't be able to pick up anything outside of the standard JPG attributes.

But if iPhoto 4 does populate attributes, moving your iPhoto.db aside should repopulate... but I haven't tried or tested that. Worth a shot.

Sorry for the confusion,
--
Ken.

[ifjake]

i'm thinking that iPhoto 04 doesn't populate attributes as you put it. i did the terminal stuff but nothing happened. i use Keyword Assistant so i'm going off the keywords. when i look at the actual photo in my library with Preview and do the "get info" thing and see if they keyword i assigned to it from iPhoto is actually in the photo itself, it's blank. which is unfortunate, because i'm really pleased with iLife 04 and don't feel the need to upgrade to 05, other than this one little thing. i'm going to leave some feedback at Apple and see what happens.

and i can't seem to get that automator action to work, or it only works with comments and not keywords. i kinda wish it was saved as something i could open and fiddle with.