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Using Search Filters

Powerful search filters let you easily find specific photos and videos, for example:

  • Persons visible on a picture
  • Objects that are displayed on a picture
  • The main color of a picture
  • The file or folder name of a picture
  • Location where a picture 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
dist decimal dist:50 Distance to Position (km)
lat decimal lat:41.894043 GPS Position (Latitude)
lng decimal lng:-87.62448 GPS Position (Longitude)
chroma number chroma:70 Chroma (0-100)
diff number diff:-1 diff:2 Differential Perceptual Hash (000000-FFFFFF)
quality number quality:0 quality:3 Minimum quality score (1-7)
album string album:berlin Album UID or Name, supports * wildcards
albums string albums:"South Africa & Birds" Album Names (combinable with & and |)
alt string alt:300-500 GPS Altitude (m)
camera string camera:canon Camera Make/Model Name
category string category:airport Location Category
city string city:"Berlin" Location City (separate with |)
codec string codec:avc1 Media Codec (e.g. jpeg, avc1, hvc1); separate with |
color string color:"red|blue" Color Name (purple, magenta, pink, red, orange, gold, yellow, lime, green, teal, cyan, blue, brown, white, grey, black) (separate with |)
country string country:"de|us" Location Country Code (separate with |)
day string day:3|13 Day of Month (1-31, separate with |)
f string f:2.8-4.5 Aperture (f-number)
face string face:PN6QO5INYTUSAATOFL43LL2ABAV5ACZG Face ID, yes, no, new, or kind
faces string faces:yes faces:3 Minimum number of Faces (yes = 1)
favorite string favorite:true favorite:false Finds images by favorite status
filename string filename:"2021/07/12345.jpg" File Name with path and extension (separate with |)
folder string folder:"*/2020" Path Name (separate with |), supports * wildcards
geo string geo:yes Finds pictures with or without coordinates
hash string hash:2fd4e1c67a2d SHA1 File Hash (separate with |)
id string id:123e4567-e89b-... Finds pictures by Exif UID, XMP Document ID or Instance ID
iso string iso:200-400 ISO Number (light sensitivity)
keywords string keywords:"sand&water" Keywords (combinable with & and |)
label string label:cat|dog Label Names (separate with |)
latlng string latlng:"name" GPS Bounding Box (Lat N, Lng E, Lat S, Lng W)
lens string lens:ef24 Lens Make/Model Name
mm string mm:28-35 Focal Length (35mm equivalent)
month string month:7|10 Month (1-12, separate with |)
mp string mp:3-6 Resolution in Megapixels (MP)
name string name:"IMG_9831-112*" File Name without path and extension (separate with |)
near string near:pqbcf5j446s0futy Finds nearby pictures (UID)
olc string olc:8FWCHX7W+ OLC Position (Open Location Code)
original string original:"IMG_9831-112*" Original file name of imported files (separate with |)
path string path:2020/Holiday Path Name (separate with |), supports * wildcards
people string people:"Jane & John" Subject Names (combinable with & and |)
person string person:"Jane Doe & John Doe" Subject Names, exact matches (combinable with & and |)
s2 string s2:4799e370ca54c8b9 S2 Position (Cell ID)
scan string scan:true scan:false Finds scanned photos and documents
state string state:"Baden-Württemberg" Location State (separate with |)
subject string subject:"Jane Doe & John Doe" Alias for person
subjects string subjects:"Jane & John" Alias for people
title string title:"Lake*" Title (separate with |)
type string type:raw Media Type (image, video, raw, live, animated); separate with |
uid string uid:pqbcf5j446s0futy Limits results to the specified internal unique IDs
year string year:1990|2003 Year (separate with |)
animated switch animated:yes Finds animations only
archived switch archived:yes Finds archived pictures
audio switch audio:yes Finds audio recordings only
document switch document:yes Finds documents only
error switch error:yes Finds pictures with errors
hidden switch hidden:yes Finds hidden pictures (broken or unsupported)
image switch image:yes Finds regular images only
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 Excludes videos and documents from search results
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 RAW images only
review switch review:yes Finds pictures in review
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 videos only
added timestamp added:"2006-01-02T15:04:05Z" Finds pictures added at or after this time
after timestamp after:"2022-01-30" Finds pictures taken on or after this date
before timestamp before:"2022-01-30" Finds pictures taken on or before this date
edited timestamp edited:"2006-01-02T15:04:05Z" Finds pictures edited at or after this time
taken timestamp taken:"2022-01-30" Finds pictures taken on the specified date
updated timestamp updated:"2006-01-02T15:04:05Z" Finds pictures updated at or after this time

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.