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!
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.
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.
AND Search¶
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.
OR Search¶
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, day, month, year, keywords, label, path, state, 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* wildcard |
| 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 |
| 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" | Coountry Code, OR search with | |
| day | string | day:3|13 | Day of Month (1-31), OR search with | |
| 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" | 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 | Internal Unique ID, 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.