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Reset Person Database in Photos

I have a large Photos library, 144,000+ photos, and I accidentally merged two people together in the person database. There are thousands of photos so it would not be practical to go through and try to correct the face assignments at this point. Is there a way to reset the person database so I can get them assigned correctly?


I am running macOS Sequoia on an M1 Mac mini. If there is a way to do it via iOS 18 on my iPhone I would do that as well.


Thanks!

Mac mini, macOS 15.0

Posted on Oct 14, 2024 10:13 AM

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2 replies

Oct 16, 2024 12:22 PM in response to rjddsc

Update & questions - on my Mac Mini M1, I selected the People & Pets tab of photos, selected everyone and clicked delete so that it would reset all the face matching data. It cleared all the people and began the process of identifying faces again. What I find, though, is that it is adding people back and identifying their names based on what I had selected before wiping the data out. So it must not erase previous assignments but seems to be applying them to a new scan. That means that the two people that were merged are still as confused and intertwined as before.


1) any way to completely erase face elections so it will truly start over?

2) I believe face data is held at the device level, so whatever fixes I make won't make it to iOS or other devices

3) when I "correct" an incorrect face assignment, does the application learn from that and get better?


Thanks for any input those with experience might have.

Reset Person Database in Photos

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