How to Find Photos on Your Mac by What's in Them

You remember the picture, not its file name: the dog on the beach, the receipt you photographed for your expenses, the screenshot with an order number in it. A name like IMG_4033.jpg won't help, and scrolling through thousands of thumbnails takes forever.

The short answer: macOS already looks at the pictures on your Mac in the background. It reads the text in screenshots and scans, and it recognizes what photos show, and the Finder's search uses both: press ⌘F in a Finder window and type dog, beach or a word printed on the receipt. But the Finder only knows the pictures macOS has already analyzed, it mixes them with every file that merely mentions the word, and it never says why a file came up. Folia Files' search keeps the two apart, In the text and In pictures, says why each picture was found, and can read your pictures itself.

What macOS already knows about your pictures

Spotlight, the index behind every search on the Mac, doesn't stop at file names and the text of documents. In the background, macOS also looks at pictures:

• The text in them. Words in a screenshot, a scanned letter or a photo of a receipt are recognized and stored with the rest of Spotlight's text, so searching for those words finds the picture the same way it finds a PDF.
• What they show. macOS recognizes objects and scenes, such as an animal, a beach, a car or a clock, and keeps them with the picture. The Finder's search looks at that information too, which is why typing dog can bring up a photo with no "dog" anywhere in its name.

This happens gradually, a few pictures at a time. A picture you have just saved may not be findable yet, and when we checked one of our Macs, only part of the pictures on its disk had been analyzed. In our tests, the pictures stored in iCloud Drive hadn't been analyzed at all: no text, no scenes. The Photos library is a world of its own: the Finder doesn't search inside it, and the Photos app has its own search for the photos it holds.

How to search pictures by what they show in the Finder

1. In a Finder window, press ⌘F.
2. Type what the picture shows: dog, beach, car, sunset.
3. In the bar under the toolbar, next to Search:, click This Mac, so the search isn't limited to the folder you were in.
4. To keep only pictures, click + at the right end of that bar and set the new row to Kind is Image.

What you get is everything Spotlight matches for the word: photos that show a dog, but also documents that mention dogs, a file named dog-food-invoice.pdf and screenshots of a pet shop's website. The Finder doesn't tell you which is which. Which words macOS attaches to a scene isn't documented either: if a word finds nothing, try a synonym or a more general word (animal rather than a breed).

How to find text in screenshots, scans and receipts

A receipt is mostly text, so search for what is printed on it rather than what it looks like: the shop's name, an item, the amount. "Total" is on every receipt; the shop's name narrows it down. The same goes for a scanned letter, a screenshot of an order confirmation or a photo of a whiteboard.

In the Finder, it's the same search: press ⌘F, type the words, and add Kind is Image if you only want pictures. It works for the pictures whose text macOS has already read.

In Folia Files, choose In the text: you get the documents and the pictures whose text contains every word you typed, in any order, capitals and accents aside. Each line says why it was found: Text in the picture, followed by the passage when Folia Files has read the picture itself. Add Filter › Show Only › Images to keep only screenshots, scans and photos.

How to search "In pictures" with Folia Files

Folia Files' search opens at the top of the tab, next to your folders, and you choose what to look in.

1. Click Find (the magnifying glass) in the toolbar, or choose Edit › New Search (⇧⌘F).
2. Type what the picture shows: dog, beach, sky.
3. Click the pill that says In the name and choose In what pictures show: the pill now reads In pictures.
4. The first pill says where: Everywhere by default, or the disks and folders you pick.

Only the pictures that show what you typed come back, not the ones where the word is merely written or part of the name. Each result says why: What the picture shows, or Shows followed by the subjects recognized. A word must match whole, so car won't bring up a card. Nothing is read while you search: results come at once, from what macOS has recognized (through Spotlight) and from the pictures Folia Files has already read itself. The ⓘ next to the pills, The limits of this search, tells you what the last search couldn't cover. More about search in Folia Files.

Let Folia Files read your pictures itself

To go beyond what macOS has looked at, iCloud Drive included, turn on Folia Files' own reading: Settings › Search › Reading pictures, then Read my pictures in the background (their text and what they show). It stays off until you turn it on. Folia Files also offers it in the ⓘ of a search in the text or in pictures, with Read My Pictures.

• What it reads: the pictures in your home folder, in iCloud Drive and in your cloud folders, only those already on this Mac. Nothing is downloaded, and other disks are left alone.
• When: in the background, while the Mac is plugged in. The first reading takes from a few minutes to a few hours, depending on how many pictures you have; after that, only new or changed pictures.
• What it finds: the text in each picture, read in the app's language, English and French, and what it shows, found with English or French words (dog or chien). On macOS 27, with Apple Intelligence turned on, Describe what photos show with Apple Intelligence adds 10 to 20 keywords per photo, in English and in the app's language, a few seconds per photo.
• Where it goes: nowhere. What Folia Files reads stays on your Mac.

What neither of them will find

• Photos inside the Photos library: use the search in the Photos app. If you would rather keep your photos in ordinary folders, here is how to import them from an SD card without the Photos app.
• Pictures that are only in the cloud, not downloaded to the Mac: Folia Files never downloads a picture to read it, and in our tests Spotlight knew nothing of what such files contain.
• People by name, and videos: Folia Files' search doesn't look for either.

Once you have found your pictures, you can rename them by the date they were taken, so they sort in order wherever you keep them.