How to search your PhotoStructure library

How to search your PhotoStructure library

Asset search was a user-requested feature: be sure to join us in the PhotoStructure forum to discuss and vote on what gets built next!

What do search queries look like?

A search query includes one or more search terms.

What’s a search term?

Search terms may be simple words, like cat.

Simple terms match all assets associated to any tag whose path contains the search term.

Search terms may be “filtered”, like camera:canon.

Filtered search terms limit matches to the filter. In the case of camera:canon, only assets associated to “camera” tags that contain the word “canon” will be matched.

Search term filters

FilterDescriptionExamples
camera:matches all assets whose camera make or model includes the search termcamera:canon, camera:EOS
lens:matches all assets whose lens make or model includes the search termlens:50mm, lens:Nikkor
type:matches all assets that have an asset file variant whose type is the search termtype:image, type:video,
type:jpeg, type:heic, type:raw/sony
who:matches all assets associated to a Who tag that includes the search termwho:alice, who:rogers/fred
kw:matches all assets associated to a Keywords tag that includes the search termkw:sky
fs:matches all assets where any asset file variant pathname includes the search termfs:backup
name:matches all assets with a filename containing the search term. Aliases: file:, fn:, filename:, basename:name:vacation, name:*.jpg, name:=IMG_0012.JPG
favedmatches assets that have been marked as a favorite. For convenience, faved, favorite, and favourite are all equivalent to faved:true.faved, faved:true, faved:false
deletedmatches assets that have been marked for deletion. For convenience, deleted is equivalent to deleted:true.deleted, deleted:true, deleted:false

Note that all root tags are valid filters.

The name: filter searches asset filenames. This is useful when you remember a filename but not its tags or date.

TermFilenameMatchWhy?
name:vacationvacation.jpg✅“vacation” is a substring of the filename
name:vacationmy_vacation.jpg✅Substring match works anywhere in the filename
name:vacationsunset.jpg❌“vacation” doesn’t appear in the filename
name:*.jpgsunset.jpg✅* matches any characters, so this finds all JPEGs
name:*.jpgsunset.png❌The extension doesn’t match
name:=IMG_0012.JPGIMG_0012.JPG✅Exact match on the full filename
name:=IMG_0012.JPGIMG_0012.JPEG❌Exact match requires the full filename
-name:screenshotvacation.jpg✅Negation excludes files containing “screenshot”
-name:screenshotscreenshot_01.png❌This file is excluded by the negation

Aliases: file:, fn:, filename:, basename: all work the same as name:.

Dated search term filters

The date:, before:, after:, and updated: filters accept a date term and, optionally, an operator.

Operators are “<”, “<=”, “>”, and “>=”.

The search term for dated filters must be formatted as YYYY-MM-DD, YYYY-MM, or YYYY.

FilterDescriptionExamples
date:matches assets’ captured at time.date:2018, date:<=2018-09-03
before:is added as a convenience, and is equivalent to date:<before:2018, before:2010-04-03
after:is added as a convenience, and is equivalent to date:>after:2018, after:2010-04-03
updated:matches all assets last synchronized with your PhotoStructure libraryupdated:>=2021-04-21

Tag path terms

PhotoStructure’s tags are hierarchical. You can match on parent/child paths by including a slash in your search term to limit to specific parent-child tags.

  • who:Fred will match all people whose first or last name contains the word “Fred”

  • who:Rogers/Fred will limit matches to Fred Rogers 🚋.

Substring and wildcard search terms

Tag search uses substring matching. To match tags that start with your search term, add a “*”:

TermTagMatchWhy?
kw:abcKeywords/abc✅kw: is an alias for Keywords:. kw:abc matches Keywords tags whose path contains “abc”
kw:abcKeywords/ABC✅Latin characters are matched case-insensitively, so abc also matches “ABC”
kw:abcKeywords/2018-12-30_abc✅“abc” appears as a substring within the path element
kw:abcKeywords/abcdef✅“abc” is a substring of “abcdef”. Use kw:=abc for exact matching
kw:abcKeywords/a/b/c❌“abc” doesn’t appear as a substring in any single path element
kw:abc*Keywords/abc✅The * wildcard matches zero or more characters
kw:abc*Keywords/2018-12-30_abc✅“abc” appears as a substring
kw:abc*Keywords/abcdef✅“abc” followed by any characters matches “abcdef”
kw:abc*Keywords/a/b/c❌The path separators prevent matching across elements
kw:a/b/cKeywords/a/b/c✅To match partial path hierarchies, use / in your search term
kw:a/b/cKeywords/abc❌Path separators must match
kw:a*/b/c*Keywords/a/b/c✅You can combine both / path separators and * wildcards
kw:a*/b/c*Keywords/aaa/b/cde✅

Quoted terms

Terms with whitespace may use double-quotes, like fs:"My Pictures".

Exact-match search terms

PhotoStructure applies “inheritance” to tagged assets.

To disable inheritance and only match assets directly tagged with a path, use the := operator.

  • tag:TERM will match assets tagged with any path that includes TERM.

  • tag:=TERM will match assets tagged with any path that ends with TERM.

To match tags that start with a TERM, start the TERM with a “/”.

  • tag:/TERM will match assets tagged with any path that starts with TERM.

  • tag:=/TERM will match assets tagged with the tag that exactly matches TERM, because the /TERM means it must start with TERM, and := means it must end with TERM.

TermTagMatchWhy?
where:californiaWhere/California/San Francisco/Golden Gate✅Terms normally match any word in the tag’s path
where:"san francisco"Where/California/San Francisco/Golden Gate✅Use double quotes for paths that include spaces
where:"golden gate"Where/California/San Francisco/Golden Gate✅Terms are matched case-insensitively for latin-based characters.
where:="golden gate"Where/California/San Francisco/Golden Gate✅Adding the = operator disables tag inheritance
where:="san francisco"Where/California/San Francisco/Golden Gate❌The tag doesn’t end with “san francisco”
where:="san francisco"Where/California/San Francisco✅The tag ends with “san francisco”
who:chrisWho/Robin/Chris✅Who/Robin/Chris includes “Chris”
who:=chrisWho/Robin/Chris✅Who/Robin/Chris ends with “Chris”
who:chrisWho/Chris/Robin✅Who/Chris/Robin includes “Chris”
who:=chrisWho/Chris/Robin❌Who/Chris/Robin doesn’t end with “Chris”
what:aWhat/a/b/c✅Matches due to tag inheritance
what:bWhat/a/b/c✅
what:cWhat/a/b/c✅
what:a/bWhat/a/b/c✅Any portion of the path can match if the term doesn’t start or end with “/”
what:b/cWhat/a/b/c✅
what:a/b/cWhat/a/b/c✅
what:=a/b/cWhat/a/b/c✅The tag ends with “a/b/c”
what:=a/bWhat/a/b/c❌The tag doesn’t end with “a/b”
what:=b/cWhat/a/b/c✅The tag ends with “b/c”
what:/a/bWhat/a/b/c✅The tag starts with /a/b
what:/b/cWhat/a/b/c❌The tag doesn’t start with /b/c
what:=/a/b/cWhat/a/b/c✅The tag exactly matches the term
what:=/a/b/cWhat/ZZZ/a/b/c❌The tag doesn’t exactly match the term

Negated terms

All filtered terms may be negated by prefixing the filter with a minus sign.

For example, -lens:nikkor will return all assets not captured with a Nikkor lens.

Clauses of terms

  • Terms may be grouped together with AND, OR, and parenthesis.

    faved AND (who:alice OR date:2020-07-04) will match all faved assets that include Alice or were taken on 4 July 2020.

  • Terms separated by whitespace are grouped together with AND.

    faved after:2012 is equivalent to faved AND after:2012.

  • Search terms, filters, and AND and OR are all case-insensitive.

More examples

  • faved after:1990 who:alice matches all assets marked as a favorite taken after 1990 that includes Alice.

  • type:video faved after:2010 before:2015 matches all video assets marked as a favorite taken in 2011 through and including 2014.

  • (type:video after:2010) or (faved date:2015) matches all video assets taken after 2010 as well as all favorite assets taken in 2015.