How to Use Keywords in Apple Photos

Apple Photos may be gaining image recognition abilities, but its keywords feature allows you to tag images for easy sorting. Here we'll show you how to create new keywords, use shortcuts to add keyword tags more efficiently, tag photos with keywords and search and organize images by keyword.

How to Add and Edit Keywords

1. Type Command + K to view the Keywords pane, and click + to add more keywords.

2. Type in a keyword, and Enter.

3. Double-click on the Shortcut column

4. Type a letter. This shortcut key can be used with the Option key (Option+P) for quick tagging photos. Click OK when you're done. 

5. To tag photos manually, select and right-click.

7. Type keywords into the Add a Keyword field.

8. Click the Close bubble. You've added keywords to photos.

9. Type a keyword into the search field to find all images with that tag.

How to Create Keyword-based Photo Albums

1. Click File.

2. Select New Smart Album.

3. Name your smart album (might I suggest the keyword tag in question?) and click Photo.

4. Select Keyword.

5. Click Birthday (or whatever comes after 'is').

6. Select a keyword and click OK.

Now every photo you tag with this keyword will appear in this smart album.