Photos title rewriting issue on macOS Sequoia

After I import a few photos from iPhone to my MacBook Pro, I select one then press Command-i, and in the Info window, I place cursor at the first line where it shows "Add a title". But when I start typing, after some characters, the title rewrites itself: my typing is replaced with "Looking for titles…" So I'll select that and delete and start typing again, but the title rewrites itself again, sometimes completely, sometimes just some of my typing. After some minutes, I can eventually type the title I want and press return and it stays that way — it eventually doesn't re-write itself.


It seems like when photos are newly imported into Photos, the software is doing something that prevents my changing of the photo's title. This behavior has afflicted my Photos for years.


On macOS Sequoia 15.2. Macbook Pro 15-inch, 2018 (Intel i9, 32GB RAM, 2TB). Photos library has about 67K photos.





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Posted on Dec 26, 2024 07:43 AM

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3 replies

Jan 1, 2025 11:05 AM in response to marcresure254

Wow-- that's weird. It's not happened to me. To narrow things down, try these steps:

  • Restart the computer (of course)
  • Re-start in Safe Mode. This bypasses certain potentially disruptive processes, and it often helps. Safe Mode is different for different computers, so see this: 

           Start up your Mac in safe mode - Apple Support 


Those are the easiest things to try first, and I have some hope for the Safe start. If that doesn't work, then try these:

  • Use another library if you have one, or make a small test Library with a few pictures in it and see if the same thing happens. You can create a new Library by closing Photos and then option-clicking on the Photos icon.
  • Make a new user and see if the same problem recurs with it
  • Rebuild your Photos Library--close Photos and re-launch by option-command-clicking the app icon.


The idea is to find out if the problem is with the Library, with your account, or with caches and login items, and stuff like that. One of these steps may fix the problem, but their failure to work also helps figure out what's happening.


Let us know what happens…

Jan 9, 2025 06:35 PM in response to Richard.Taylor

The bug has been occurring for many months, across many restarts. I have rebuilt my library multiple times across the months. This problem goes back at least a year.

I wouldn't operate my computer regularly in Safe Mode so I don't care to know what happens with this bug when in Safe Mode.

I'm not really interested in messing with a new library, test library, or any of that nonsense. I have a library. I expect it to work without bugs. Sorry but I'm not down to debug Apple's imperfections any more. I hoped for a fix, none found. Thanks for your time anyway.

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Photos title rewriting issue on macOS Sequoia

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