Apple photos does not sync tagged faces/people right?

[Yendog]

Okay. Please experts confirm this with me. As far as I can tell and have been told directly. Faces/people that have been tagged on one device do NOT sync to your other devices on iCloud. This is ostensibly because of some privacy concern.

This is INSANE to me but in a discussion on another forum I was told this is a FEATURE not a bug.

Meaning that all face tagging stays on the device. I was confused for a long time as I would spend HOURS tagging people on my laptop and then those faces were NOT tagged on my iPhone, or iPad or desktop.

There is not a setting I have messed up right? This makes me crazy as my photo library is VERY important to me and I have seriously curated it to be well organized. Please confirm you wonderful experts that this is inexorably true.

I have tested this again recently by tagging someone on a device as 'test subject 1" and yup.. they were still "Unnamed" on all other devices.

Sometimes they are tagged on all devices but it seems like especially when I manually tag them it is only going to work on THAT device. Please tell me there's something I'm doing wrong or a setting I have wrong as I would LOVE to be able to tag someone on any device and have it propagate through ALL my devices through iCloud (as it sure SEEMS like it should do!)

Please help! If this IS how it is supposed to work (I think it is) then I will just start submitting requests to change this to apple every week for the rest of my life until they do it. . Thank you!

 

[Stecchino]

Face identification in Photos does sync between iOS and macOS. However it can take its sweet time. It's not real time.

 

[DarkPremiumCho]

On Apple's support document:

When you use iCloud Photos, your People album is kept up to date on all your devices that meet these minimum system requirements: iOS 11, iPadOS 13, or macOS 10.13. (You must be signed in with the same Apple ID on all the devices.)

It's hard to explain, because

• some components of this feature work on your device
• and some data never sync through iCloud
• neural hashes? I have no idea if they are getting synced
• some cryptographic hashes, maybe
• your other devices also needs time to detect faces

We are not even on the case where iCloud mysteriously not syncing certain data.

 

[nicho]

your People album is kept up to date on all your devices

My experience of this is quite literal: the people album (list of different people, and when they are combined etc) syncs between devices - their names, their key photos.

Drill down into the individual people? Doesnt seem so much to do that.

 

[Yendog]

Yea I agree Nicho... and I have to disagree Steccincho.. it really really doesn't. I've tested it ever single way.. from phone.. from iPad... from laptop and from desktop... when you manually have to enter someones name through "info" on computer or whatever it NEVER syncs... and the other thread I discussed this in found a way to show that this is how it is SUPPOSED to work...

Agreed with some here though.. often the automatic "sync" but I actually dont think they are "syncing" they are just finding the name independently....

I'm telling those of you that do not agree... go onto your desktop.. find a photo with a face that is not identified.... hit "command-I" and pull up info.... then "add a face"

put it in....

choose something that is obviously not that person (subject 1) or something...

it does NOT sync.... and I sure don't think there is a setting I do not have set.. but part of the reason for this thread and question.. just in case there IS one that I don't know about...

 

[Yendog]

As I said.. my photo library is incredibly important to me and VERY cultivated and edited.... so I have tested this in a LOT of ways and after MANY os and iOS updates ....



I first realized this when I did HOURS upon HOURS of tagging and editing at a job I was doing with a lot of down time... and then realized that it was not propagating to my iPhone and desktop...

the edits...YUP!
The locations.. YUP! (pretty sure)

but the faces.. NOPE

and in the research I've found its because of some "privacy" concern with apple.... but WOW I want this to change or at least be able to opt out of it.

 

[Stecchino]

I see. When I originally answered, I was noticing the people are there, but I haven't actually drilled down into the identified faces within those people to compare deeply. Sorry for the premature reply.