# Which folder contains a photo of a particular object? **URL:** \ **Category:** Factual Questions\ **Created:** [December 20, 2018, 2:14am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/which-folder-contains-a-photo-of-a-particular-object/826398 "2018-12-20T02:14:45Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 18\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![race\_to\_the\_bottom](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/c4cdca/32.png) [@race\_to\_the\_bottom](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/race_to_the_bottom)\ **Post date:** [December 20, 2018, 2:14am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/which-folder-contains-a-photo-of-a-particular-object/826398/1 "2018-12-20T02:14:45Z")
I have thousands of photos taken over the past decade and a half contained in maybe 50 folders. Is there a way to, say, put all the folders into a larger folder and then instruct software to go through all of them to find a photo of a particular image, of a cat, for instance. Or a particular person? ---
**Author:** ![beowulff](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/beowulff/32/542_2.png) [@beowulff](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/beowulff)\ **Post date:** [December 20, 2018, 3:23am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/which-folder-contains-a-photo-of-a-particular-object/826398/2 "2018-12-20T03:23:59Z")
Yes, if you use Apple’s “Photos” app. It can scan images for those that match many hundreds of keywords - things like “cat”, “dog”, “sky”, etc. I don’t know if there are equivalent capabilities in Windows. ---
**Author:** ![minor7flat5](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/minor7flat5/32/258_2.png) [@minor7flat5](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/minor7flat5)\ **Post date:** [December 20, 2018, 3:37am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/which-folder-contains-a-photo-of-a-particular-object/826398/3 "2018-12-20T03:37:02Z")
I’m stunned! I never knew that the lame Apple “Photos” app did that. I just went in and typed “Cat” and it found dozens of photos of my cats. I tried “Guitar” and it came up with many dozens of guitar photos. I tried “Machine” and it found pictures of my machine shop work and the little steam engine I photographed today. That’s a cool feature. ---
**Author:** ![Banksiaman](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/banksiaman/32/3334_2.png) [@Banksiaman](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Banksiaman)\ **Post date:** [December 20, 2018, 4:22am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/which-folder-contains-a-photo-of-a-particular-object/826398/4 "2018-12-20T04:22:45Z")
You wont think its so cool when you type in ‘Minor7flat5 doing something illegal’ or ‘inadvertent buttcrack’ or ‘70s school disco’. I’d hoped to be insulated from prying eyes and public shame by the sheer volume and disarray of photo albums that could have contained something incriminating, but it seems that was the naivety talking. ---
**Author:** ![AnalogSignal](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/analogsignal/32/1085_2.png) [@AnalogSignal](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/AnalogSignal)\ **Post date:** [December 20, 2018, 4:32am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/which-folder-contains-a-photo-of-a-particular-object/826398/5 "2018-12-20T04:32:59Z")
Google Photos is very smart. It can recognize objects, animals, faces, etc. Install Google Photos on your PC/device, let it ingest your pix, and then search away. ---
**Author:** ![race\_to\_the\_bottom](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/c4cdca/32.png) [@race\_to\_the\_bottom](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/race_to_the_bottom)\ **Post date:** [December 20, 2018, 6:03pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/which-folder-contains-a-photo-of-a-particular-object/826398/6 "2018-12-20T18:03:58Z")
Thanks. Google Photos it is. ---
**Author:** ![minor7flat5](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/minor7flat5/32/258_2.png) [@minor7flat5](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/minor7flat5)\ **Post date:** [December 20, 2018, 6:30pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/which-folder-contains-a-photo-of-a-particular-object/826398/7 "2018-12-20T18:30:29Z")
> [@Banksiaman](#): > > You wont think its so cool when you type in ‘Minor7flat5 doing something illegal’ or ‘inadvertent buttcrack’ or ‘70s school disco’. > > I’d hoped to be insulated from prying eyes and public shame by the sheer volume and disarray of photo albums that could have contained something incriminating, but it seems that was the naivety talking. I suspect other things might crop up. Several years ago when it was the thing to Google one’s full name, I discovered that I have a doppelganger out there who is a gay porn star. He looks better than me too. My wife got quite a laugh. ---
**Author:** ![naita](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/naita/32/5862_2.png) [@naita](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/naita)\ **Post date:** [December 20, 2018, 6:55pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/which-folder-contains-a-photo-of-a-particular-object/826398/8 "2018-12-20T18:55:35Z")
> [@Banksiaman](#): > > You wont think its so cool when you type in ‘Minor7flat5 doing something illegal’ or ‘inadvertent buttcrack’ or ‘70s school disco’. > > I’d hoped to be insulated from prying eyes and public shame by the sheer volume and disarray of photo albums that could have contained something incriminating, but it seems that was the naivety talking. Posting to a public board that your photo albums contain incriminating information is perhaps also not the best approach to ensure you’re insulated from prying? ---
**Author:** ![Banksiaman](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/banksiaman/32/3334_2.png) [@Banksiaman](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Banksiaman)\ **Post date:** [December 20, 2018, 8:30pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/which-folder-contains-a-photo-of-a-particular-object/826398/9 "2018-12-20T20:30:02Z")
> [@naita](#): > > Posting to a public board that your photo albums contain incriminating information is perhaps also not the best approach to ensure you’re insulated from prying? Could be my cunning plan to distract them from the really bad stuff on my Facebook page. ---
**Author:** ![Banksiaman](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/banksiaman/32/3334_2.png) [@Banksiaman](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Banksiaman)\ **Post date:** [December 20, 2018, 8:31pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/which-folder-contains-a-photo-of-a-particular-object/826398/10 "2018-12-20T20:31:15Z")
oops! ---
**Author:** ![Textual\_Innuendo](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/898d66/32.png) [@Textual\_Innuendo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Textual_Innuendo)\ **Post date:** [December 22, 2018, 3:08pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/which-folder-contains-a-photo-of-a-particular-object/826398/11 "2018-12-22T15:08:34Z")
Well, I feel silly. When I started thinking about how I’d do this, I’d have done some complicated thing ingesting all the pictures into a python+tensorflow environment and then used a pre-trained image recognition model to categorize them, with the option of tuning the model more specifically from there…which it turns out is an _awful_ solution, because the big guys are already incorporating this into free consumer software available right now at the push of a button! I have been educated. ---
**Author:** ![Chronos](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/chronos/32/134_2.png) [@Chronos](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Chronos)\ **Post date:** [December 22, 2018, 6:25pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/which-folder-contains-a-photo-of-a-particular-object/826398/12 "2018-12-22T18:25:10Z")
It’s like they say: Good programmers write good code, but great programmers steal good code. ---
**Author:** ![md2000](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/73ab20/32.png) [@md2000](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/md2000)\ **Post date:** [December 22, 2018, 10:39pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/which-folder-contains-a-photo-of-a-particular-object/826398/13 "2018-12-22T22:39:44Z")
Yes, the downside is that you must share your photos with Google. Apple also seems to want to hold on to your photos on iCloud. I also wonder, I have about 140GB of photos; my latest camera is 24Mp and each photo can be 10MB to 17MB large. Plus trusting your photo albums to a website invites privacy violations and the risk that one day you will get an email stating “your 500GB of photos will disappear if you don’t download them now.” (That sort of thing has happened with some websites) I keep mine on a pair of portable USB hard drives. I’d love to know a self-contained application that can index these in the same manner as Google or Apple. ---
**Author:** ![beowulff](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/beowulff/32/542_2.png) [@beowulff](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/beowulff)\ **Post date:** [December 23, 2018, 12:19am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/which-folder-contains-a-photo-of-a-particular-object/826398/14 "2018-12-23T00:19:20Z")
> [@md2000](#): > > Yes, the downside is that you must share your photos with Google. Apple also seems to want to hold on to your photos on iCloud. > > I also wonder, I have about 140GB of photos; my latest camera is 24Mp and each photo can be 10MB to 17MB large. Plus trusting your photo albums to a website invites privacy violations and the risk that one day you will get an email stating “your 500GB of photos will disappear if you don’t download them now.” (That sort of thing has happened with some websites) I keep mine on a pair of portable USB hard drives. I’d love to know a self-contained application that can index these in the same manner as Google or Apple. There is no requirement to hold your photos in iCloud. I have my entire 200+GB library stored locally. ---
**Author:** ![Atamasama](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/atamasama/32/12961_2.png) [@Atamasama](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Atamasama)\ **Post date:** [December 23, 2018, 3:05am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/which-folder-contains-a-photo-of-a-particular-object/826398/15 "2018-12-23T03:05:08Z")
> [@Chronos](#): > > It’s like they say: Good programmers write good code, but great programmers steal good code. You described my web design philosophy to perfection. 😃 ---
**Author:** ![md2000](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/73ab20/32.png) [@md2000](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/md2000)\ **Post date:** [December 23, 2018, 3:00pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/which-folder-contains-a-photo-of-a-particular-object/826398/16 "2018-12-23T15:00:02Z")
> [@Atamasama](#): > > You described my web design philosophy to perfection. 😃 Google is my reference manual. ---
**Author:** ![Quartz](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/quartz/32/267_2.png) [@Quartz](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Quartz)\ **Post date:** [December 23, 2018, 3:19pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/which-folder-contains-a-photo-of-a-particular-object/826398/17 "2018-12-23T15:19:08Z")
> [@minor7flat5](#): > > I suspect other things might crop up. Several years ago when it was the thing to Google one’s full name, I discovered that I have a doppelganger out there who is a gay porn star. He looks better than me too. My wife got quite a laugh. I have a namesake who was a serious criminal; the good news is that he’s turned his life around and is now very successful in a legal enterprise. ---
**Author:** ![TimeWinder](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/bcef8e/32.png) [@TimeWinder](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/TimeWinder)\ **Post date:** [December 23, 2018, 9:34pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/which-folder-contains-a-photo-of-a-particular-object/826398/18 "2018-12-23T21:34:14Z")
Since this has been resurrected, anyway, there’s a pretty good article on how this stuff works over at Ars Technica: [How computers got shockingly good at recognizing images | Ars Technica](https://arstechnica.com/science/2018/12/how-computers-got-shockingly-good-at-recognizing-images/?fbclid=IwAR01ScrI8c12ircEKlzbTEuBz59zTd_ggejS8vyZ9TVJUWtBQUQKChvDFZ0)