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2:59 pm

December 23, 2020

I was an enthusiastic new user of Google Photos until a bit earlier today …
I installed the app on my iPad and iPhone (two different Apple ID’s) …
Uploaded photos from my computer’s Photos folder…
Used Backup & Sync further to send photos from my computer’s Photos folder ..
Fell in love with the feature where it recognized the faces, allowed me to label a face, easily search for it, etc.
Found a photo with a VERY important face that wasn’t recognized in the People and Pets section
Try as I might, could not get it to add the face to People & Pets …
Searched on the web, found many people with similar complaints.
Tried turning “Group Similar Faces” off, then back on on my computer.
Now “People and Pets” is entirely gone.
HELP please !!! This essentially makes Google Photos unusable for me. It’s hard for me to believe this problem has no solution and this has spurred me to sign up for GeeksOnTour. Is there a solution?
Ed,
Have you tried manually adding a few face? Here’s an article that explains how: Google Photos manual face-tagging
You certainly shouldn’t need to do that – face tagging is supposed to be an automatic process. Sometimes these automatic processes run into problems – they usually straighten themselves out after a while. After manually tagging a few, be sure to do a refresh on your browser.
I also hope this gets resolved soon. Meanwhile, do try the manual tagging.
11:41 am

December 23, 2020

Well, overnight it magically fixed itself … the faces were there again in People and Pets … and in fact it found more faces than before … and it still didn’t find two faces from this one photo that was the problem, but this time I was able manually to add them.
Go figure. So I am back to being an enthusiastic if neophyte user of Google Photos … the face recognition thing alone is invaluable.
thanks so much, and am glad I signed up for Geeks On Tour.
Ed
Ed,
Thanks so much for the followup. I’m really glad to hear that the faces came back. That is what is supposed to happen, but sometimes it takes hours, sometimes it takes months.
For those really important faces, consider making an automatic album, then there will be no worry about losing past recognized people/pets because they will be in an album. It’s also called “Live” albums. If you have the book (and you do since you’re a member – its a .pdf here) Live albums are covered in Chapter 8, page 118-19.
Glad to have you as a member!
Chris
2:18 pm

December 23, 2020

Months !!! that’s weird.
It’s strange also that sometimes it automatically recognizes the presence of a new face from a new photo, and other times it doesn’t and you have to manually.
Also strange is that even after you have added the face, it doesn’t always immediately offer you the option to name the person.
Will try out the automatic albums feature … thank you !!!!
Ed
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