Apple Photos, Face Scanning and iCloud

[liamski]

hey - a multi part question

I want to upload a bunch of historic photos into my iCloud account, and have the OSX Photos app run face recognition on them.

Why?

Because I'd like these photos to appear in the Memories / recaps / videos that appear on my iPhone, but also be able to search for a specific person quickly.

But is this possible? And...Would the newly scanned photos also be available via my phone?

I've seen people suggest turning on 'iCloud Photos' but I dont want all NEW photos taken on my iPhone to be saved to iCloud because it would kill my storage space.

Hopefully this makes sense! Any ideas appreciated - and tell me if I'm misunderstanding the entire Photos process (which I know is on device)

thanks

 

[chengengaun]

Just to clarify - do you mean you want to use your Mac to index the faces, so that details of the faces will show up on your iPhone? If so, I don't think this is possible - all the indexing happens on the devices that hold your photos. iCloud does not apply face recognition on your photos on the cloud.

Perhaps you can try syncing your photos between your Mac and your iPhone, and let the iPhone run the face recognition in the background.

 

[liamski]

Just to clarify - do you mean you want to use your Mac to index the faces, so that details of the faces will show up on your iPhone? If so, I don't think this is possible - all the indexing happens on the devices that hold your photos. iCloud does not apply face recognition on your photos on the cloud.

Perhaps you can try syncing your photos between your Mac and your iPhone, and let the iPhone run the face recognition in the background.

Yes you've pretty much summarised it.

How might that sync work? trying to figure out the workflow here

thanks

 

[chengengaun]

Yes you've pretty much summarised it.

How might that sync work? trying to figure out the workflow here

thanks

If you use macOS Catalina or newer, you can use Finder to sync your Photos collection. (Photos is in one of the tabs; the first tab is Music.)

Use the Finder to sync your iPhone, iPad or iPod touch with your Mac - Apple Support (SG)

The Finder is one of the ways you can sync your device with your Mac.

support.apple.com

Otherwise, you can use iTunes.

The face recognition indexing should run in the background on your iPhone once the photos are transferred.

 

[liamski]

If you use macOS Catalina or newer, you can use Finder to sync your Photos collection. (Photos is in one of the tabs; the first tab is Music.)

Use the Finder to sync your iPhone, iPad or iPod touch with your Mac - Apple Support (SG)

The Finder is one of the ways you can sync your device with your Mac.

support.apple.com

Otherwise, you can use iTunes.

The face recognition indexing should run in the background on your iPhone once the photos are transferred.

Very helpful - thank you

Think the only issue with this is that it would eat up the storage on my phone - I've got 1.5tb of photos in mind, but a 512gb iPhone. Perhaps I'll need to be selective.

Just really dont want to start using Google Photos!

 

[chengengaun]

Think the only issue with this is that it would eat up the storage on my phone - I've got 1.5tb of photos in mind, but a 512gb iPhone. Perhaps I'll need to be selective.

One advantage of iCloud Photos in this scenario is the ability to store just thumbnails on the iPhone and download photos on demand - I guess you indeed have to make some selections when syncing the photos.

 

[liamski]

Shame apple dont offer a proper service like this, but thats the price of privacy I guess