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Caption Search - Lightroom Mobile

R

richrogers0

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Joined
Mar 29, 2026
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  1. Windows 11
Hello,

First post here. I have seen some comments/questions dancing around this topic but not one exactly on point.

I have used LRc for years now. But i want to be able to use my ipad to help cull pictures, flag, edit, etc... So i created a small collection as a test and synced it. I use the plug in to copy my keywords to the caption field. I can then see the captions on the synced files in LR mobile (phone, ipad, pc web). But for some reason when i use the search function in any of these interfaces, it returns no results.

I read somewhere that captions could take days to sync, but i assume since I can see them, that they are there. Also - i have another plugin that syncs a smart collection. And those captions appears to be searchable. But maybe because that collection has been synced for weeks.

Any thoughts? Thanks in advance for your help.

Rich
 
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I've done quick tests and I wonder if the search system misses changes made to captions after the images were initially synced.

I first confirmed that the iPad's search included the captions, and searching for "Allianz" found a number of pictures which could only have that word in the caption (not in the filename, keywords or in image content read by Adobe's Sensei AI).

Then in LrC I added the word "XYZ" to some of these pictures' captions (typing it rather than using a plugin). After Sync completed, I could see the updated text in LrW. On the iPad I checked I was in All Photos and then searched for "XYZ" - no photos.

This is obviously poor - though not as stupid as the iPad caption field still being a single line! It doesn't just affect LrM on iPad, and LrW also fails to find updated text. Surprisingly, LrD the cloudy Lightroom does find it.
 
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johnbeardy said:
I've done quick tests and I wonder if the search system misses changes made to captions after the images were initially synced.

I first confirmed that the iPad's search included the captions, and searching for "Allianz" found a number of pictures which could only have that word in the caption (not in the filename, keywords or in image content read by Adobe's Sensei AI).

Then in LrC I added the word "XYZ" to some of these pictures' captions (typing it rather than using a plugin). After Sync completed, I could see the updated text in LrW. On the iPad I checked I was in All Photos and then searched for "XYZ" - no photos.

This is obviously poor - though not as stupid as the iPad caption field still being a single line! It doesn't just affect LrM on iPad, and LrW also fails to find updated text. Surprisingly, LrD the cloudy Lightroom does find it.
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Thanks John. What's interesting is before I ever created the new collection I used your plugin to copy the keywords to the captions. So the captions were already in the files before they were synced to Lightroom web for the first time. And I cannot get the search to work no matter what in any of the mobile platforms. It does work on Lightroom for desktop and does work in Lightroom classic desktop. Thanks
 
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I thought you might have used the plugin but I wanted to test without it. I'd never had problems with search in LrM or LrW before, but I've never pushed the feature in mobile apps. Maybe it's always been the same, but I'm going to ask around and see what may be happening.
 
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johnbeardy said:
I thought you might have used the plugin but I wanted to test without it. I'd never had problems with search in LrM or LrW before, but I've never pushed the feature in mobile apps. Maybe it's always been the same, but I'm going to ask around and see what may be happening.
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John,

Interesting development today. I use your plugin to transfer keywords to captions. Then I have a plugin that converts a smart collection to a synced collection (cannot recall the author). I use this so I can always find my 5 star images on LR mobile.

What I discovered today is that if i make one of my photos in the new collections a 5 star photo - it then gets captured by the smart collection and then synced via the plug in. That caption is the searchable! Regardless of whether i am searching the 5 star collection or the original collection. Just odd! But maybe a clue.
 
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My guess is that adding the image to another synced collection meant Lightroom would just include the current image metadata as part of syncing changes that collection.

What happens if you now select it in your 5 star collection and change its caption again, but manually? I do not believe the plugin is relevant in this issue.
 
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johnbeardy said:
My guess is that adding the image to another synced collection meant Lightroom would just include the current image metadata as part of syncing changes that collection.

What happens if you now select it in your 5 star collection and change its caption again, but manually? I do not believe the plugin is relevant in this issue.
Click to expand...

Second thoughts.... That can't be quite right, because we know that the changed captions are visible in LrW and are searchable in LrD.

So my guess is that the collection update refreshes whatever data is being accessed by LrM's and LrW's search.
 
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Hi John,

I have been playing around today. I added the caption "hyperbole" to 3 photos in LRc - 1 in the smart collection, 1 in synced collection 1, and 1 in synced collection 2. They all 3 became searchable in "All Photos" on LRw within 10 minutes or so. Also, each day I seem to have better luck searching for captions in LRw. I read a blurb a few days ago (maybe on Reddit) that captions can take days to show up in LRw. Maybe they show up faster, but are not searchable for a period of time.

Regardless - seems workable now.

Thanks, Rich
 
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richrogers0 said:
Maybe they show up faster, but are not searchable for a period of time.
Click to expand...
It's a guess on my part but it might take some time for the fields to get picked up by the Sensei search engine. I think the Sensei search engine may be independent of the words in the metadata fields, since you can create searches on words and phrases that don't exist in any metadata fields. It is possible that the metadata fields have a lower priority or a different priority.
 
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The problem is that it looks like the cloud clients are behaving differently. LrD finds updated text immediately, LrW and LrD only after the asset has been synced in another collection.
 
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