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Using Search Filters

PhotoPrism's powerful search filters let you easily find specific photos and videos, for example:

  • People on the photo
  • Objects that are displayed on the photo
  • The main color of the photo
  • The filename or foldername of a photo
  • Location where the photo has been taken
  • Other metadata such as camera, lens, chroma...

Just give it a try!

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Introduction

The following filters can be set via dropdowns in the search toolbar:

  • Country, Year, Month, Order, Camera, Color, Category.

If you set multiple filters, only pictures that meet all filter criteria will be displayed in the search result. Filters can generally be combined unless they contradict each other.

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In addition, these and many other filters can be entered into the toolbar search box as follows:

label:cat color:green type:live

A complete overview of the available search filters can be found below.

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To combine different filters use a space as separator:

mono:true review:false

The search result shows pictures that are monochrome and not in review.

Additionally some filters can be combined with & as follows:

keywords:buffalo&water

or:

keywords:"buffalo & water"

This query will show all photos that have the keywords water and buffalo.

& is supported by the following filters:

  • albums, keywords, subject/person, subjects/people.

The label filter does not support &. You can use the keywords filter instead, as all labels are keywords as well.

An OR search is possible using |:

label:cat|dog

This will show all photos that have either the label cat or dog.

The following filters work with |:

  • albums, color, country, state, city, day, month, year, keywords, label, path, subject/person, subjects/people, title, type, name, filename, original, hash

Wildcard

The * character will act as a wildcard:

name:"IMG_23*"

This will show all photos which name start with IMG_23.

name:"*_23*"

This will show all photos which name contain _23, like IMG_2356.MOV , 2021_02_23.jpg, etc.

Wildcards can be combined with & or |: filename:"*IMG123*|*_22F6FC19.jpg"

Filter Reference

This is a complete list of supported search filters with examples. Filters can generally be combined unless they contradict each other, e.g. results cannot be monochrome and have high color saturation at the same time.

Filter Type Examples Notes
fmax decimal fmax:1.245 F-number (max)
fmin decimal fmin:1.245 F-number (min)
lat decimal lat:1.245 Latitude (GPS Position)
lng decimal lng:1.245 Longitude (GPS Position)
chroma number chroma:70 Chroma (0-100)
diff number diff:-1 diff:2 Differential Perceptual Hash (000000-FFFFFF)
dist number dist:5 Distance in km in combination with lat/lng
quality number quality:0 quality:3 Quality Score (0-7)
album string album:berlin Album UID or Name, supports * wildcards
albums string albums:"South Africa & Birds" Album Names, can be combined with & and |
camera string camera:canon Camera Make/Model Name
category string category:"name" Location Category Name
city string city:"Berlin" Name of City (Location), OR search with |
color string color:"red|blue" Color Name (purple, magenta, pink, red, orange, gold, yellow, lime, green, teal, cyan, blue, brown, white, grey, black), OR search with |
country string country:"de|us" Country Code, OR search with |
day string day:3|13 Day of Month (1-31), OR search with |
face string face:PN6QO5IN... Face ID
faces string faces:yes faces:3 Minimum number of Faces (yes = 1)
filename string filename:"2021/07/12345.jpg" File Name with path and extension, OR search with |
folder string folder:"*/2020" Path Name, OR search with |, supports * wildcards
hash string hash:2fd4e1c67a2d SHA1 File Hash, OR search with |
keywords string keywords:"buffalo&water" Keywords, can be combined with & and |
label string label:cat|dog Label Name, OR search with |
lens string lens:ef24 Lens Make/Model Name
month string month:7|10 Month (1-12), OR search with |
name string name:"IMG_9831-112*" File Name without path and extension, OR search with |
original string original:"IMG_9831-112*" Original file name of imported files, OR search with |
path string path:2020/Holiday Path Name, OR search with |, supports * wildcards
people string people:"Jane & John" Subject Names, can be combined with & and |
person string person:"Jane Doe & John Doe" Subject Names, exact matches, can be combined with & and |
state string state:"Baden-Württemberg" Name of State (Location), OR search with |
subject string subject:"Jane Doe & John Doe" Alias for person
subjects string subjects:"Jane & John" Alias for people
title string title:"Lake*" Title, OR search with |
type string type:raw Media Type (image, video, raw, live, animated); OR search with |
uid string uid:pqbcf5j446s0futy Search for specific files or photos, only exact matches
year string year:1990|2003 Year Number, OR search with |
animated switch animated:yes Finds animated GIFs
archived switch archived:yes Finds archived pictures
error switch error:yes Finds pictures with errors
favorite switch favorite:yes Finds pictures marked as favorite
geo switch geo:yes Finds pictures with GPS location
hidden switch hidden:yes Finds hidden pictures (broken or unsupported)
landscape switch landscape:yes Finds pictures in landscape format
live switch live:yes Finds Live Photos and short videos
mono switch mono:yes Finds pictures with few or no colors
panorama switch panorama:yes Finds pictures with an aspect ratio > 1.9:1
photo switch photo:yes Finds only photos, no videos
portrait switch portrait:yes Finds pictures in portrait format
primary switch primary:yes Finds primary JPEG files only
private switch private:yes Finds private pictures
public switch public:yes Excludes private pictures
raw switch raw:yes Finds pictures with RAW image file
review switch review:yes Finds pictures in review
scan switch scan:yes Finds scanned images and documents
square switch square:yes Finds images with an aspect ratio of 1:1
stack switch stack:yes Finds pictures with more than one media file
stackable switch stackable:yes Finds pictures that can be stacked with additional media files
unsorted switch unsorted:yes Finds pictures not in an album
unstacked switch unstacked:yes Finds pictures with a file that has been removed from a stack
vector switch vector:yes Finds vector graphics only
video switch video:yes Finds video files only
after timestamp after:"2022-01-30 15:23:42" Finds pictures taken after this date
before timestamp before:"2022-01-30 15:23:42" Finds pictures taken before this date

Why can't I play live photos or find stacks when I search for specific images?

Our search API and user interface perform a file search. This is intentional since "stacks" can contain files of different types and properties, such as color.

For example, there may be color and monochrome versions. Now, when you search for them or sort them by color, the user interface must display individual files. Otherwise, the results showing a color image/video when you filter by monochrome would make no sense.

Likewise, if you search for filename.mp4.*, you will find only JPEGs without video, because the video file extension is .mp4 without an extra dot at the end.

We recommend using the path: and/or name: filters with wildcards if searching for individual files limits the search results too much. Most users will want to find all related files so that they can be displayed together, e.g. as live photos consisting of a video and an image.

You can combine these filters with other filters such as live to ensure that the results include only pictures with a specific media type. Alternatively, you can use the filename: filter with a more permissive wildcard that excludes the file extension.