The Explore drawer

The Explore drawer lets you filter photographs by detected words, cameras and lenses, with matching counts.

Press ⌘F or click Browse’s search field to open it. Click the chevron beside the magnifying glass to close it. After manual closing, the drawer stays closed when the field is focused, across windows and launches, until reopened with the chevron.

Escape. With the field focused, the first esc clears typed words and leaves the field. The next closes the drawer. The next removes drawer filters. Switching modes hides the drawer and search strip but preserves the query.

Words. Five rows list SUBJECTS, PEOPLE, LIGHT, COMPOSITION and TEXT. Each shows its twelve most common words, with an overflow chip such as +214 for the rest. In the measured library, PEOPLE, LIGHT and COMPOSITION contained five, four and three words and fit without overflow.

The count beside a word reflects the result of adding it to current filters. Words matching one photograph are omitted from the drawer but remain searchable by typing. In the measured TEXT vocabulary, 89% of 8,507 words occurred in only one photograph. The drawer also includes lower-confidence detections omitted from typed searches.

Rows use the selected collection’s vocabulary. Adding filters keeps words in place; zero-result words dim and move to the end. Rows wrap in narrow windows.

Cameras and lenses. Under Shot with, click a camera card to filter by that camera and show its lenses on a focal-length scale. Dot position represents focal length; dot area represents matching photograph count. Counts and dot sizes update with other filters.

The scale is logarithmic and uses actual focal lengths, not 35 mm equivalents. For example, 28 to 35 mm and 90 to 112 mm occupy similar distances. Camera crop factors are not stored.

Different EXIF names for the same lens are grouped into one dot. Clicking it includes every spelling. Hover for the full name. Lens names without a readable focal length appear as chips beside the scale; the measured M240 library included 37 photographs labelled not selected.

Combining filters. Each choice adds a labelled chip above the grid. Click the same choice again, or the chip’s ✕, to remove it.

• Detected words combine with AND: backlit and wide require both.
• Several cameras combine with OR: a photograph can match either camera.
• Several lenses also combine with OR.
• Camera, lens and word groups narrow one another.

Chips wrap to remain visible, and the status bar lists the filters. The drawer pushes the grid down so photographs remain visible.

All counts come from local data. Newly analysed words may not appear until the collection or library contents change and counts refresh.