{"id":46499,"date":"2025-01-22T13:52:07","date_gmt":"2025-01-22T18:52:07","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/mjtsai.com\/blog\/?p=46499"},"modified":"2025-01-22T14:05:49","modified_gmt":"2025-01-22T19:05:49","slug":"opting-out-of-visual-look-up-and-icloud-photos","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/mjtsai.com\/blog\/2025\/01\/22\/opting-out-of-visual-look-up-and-icloud-photos\/","title":{"rendered":"Opting Out of Visual Look Up and iCloud Photos"},"content":{"rendered":"

Bogdan<\/a>:<\/p>\n

This is much worse [than Photos.app’s Enhanced Visual Search<\/a>]: open an image containing a “landmark” in the Preview app, then open the Inspector. An icon will appear which, when clicked, will popup information about the landmark. Verified with a JPEG with no GPS metadata. Take a screenshot of the opened image, the same works in the screenshot. This is system level and turning it off in the Photos app has no effect.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n\n

I found that Preview will identify landmarks—i.e. it is sending a neural hash of my photo to Apple’s servers—even without my having the inspector open and even though I have Enhanced Visual Search<\/strong> unchecked in Photos.app’s settings. I think this is due to the Visual Look Up feature introduced in macOS 12.3<\/a>. The way to turn this off<\/a> is unintuitive. It’s not in the settings for Photos or Preview or even Privacy. Instead, you go to System Settings ‣ Spotlight<\/strong> and uncheck Siri Suggestions<\/strong>.<\/p>\n\n

Jeff Johnson<\/a>:<\/p>\n

Why does photoanalysisd<\/code> want to phone home?<\/p>

I don’t have iCloud Photos enabled. I don’t have Enhanced Visual Search enabled. And I wasn’t doing anything with photos. This just happened randomly in the background.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n\n

I don’t know what this is or how to turn it off. Maybe it’s downloading place names based on geotags? I assume it’s not related to Visual Look Up<\/a>, which uses mediaanalysisd<\/code>.<\/p>\n\n

Jeff Johnson<\/a>:<\/p>\n

\n

Before I enabled iCloud on the new Mac, I installed a configuration profile created with Apple Configurator app. The purpose of the configuration profile was to prevent iCloud from silently enabling features that I don't want. I discussed this technique last year in a blog post about how to stop iCloud Keychain with a profile<\/a>. My configuration profile disables not only iCloud Keychain but also iCloud Photos, Siri, Diagnostic Submission, and Apple Personalized Advertising.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

But there was a bug where it instead enabled<\/em> iCloud Photos and locked<\/em> the setting so that he couldn’t disable it.<\/p>\n\n

Previously:<\/p>\n