Lightroom April 2026 Update Breaks Search: Name Searches Returning Incorrect Results

It is not possible to search for an image by the filename. The search for a filename, like DSC123456. returns 42 results in a single album (while searching in quotes “DSC123456” returns 56 results in the same album). The resulting image selection appears random.

This is a serious issue that will results in hours of manual work. Nothing against AI assisting me, but if I know exactly what I am looking for, just give it to me - and not 46 variations of it.

This happens with all albums, not only recent ones.

While you are at it, it would greatly improve things to be able to search for multiple file names in one go, not just a single filename.
 

Hello,

I am experiencing the same issue with Lightroom's search function.

For example, when I search for a specific filename such as DSC04152 in the search bar, Lightroom does not automatically select or highlight the photo. Instead, I have to manually scroll through the folder to find it, which can be extremely time-consuming when dealing with large numbers of images.

Even worse, sometimes the search does not find the file at all, and it appears to completely disappear from the folder view after the search.

This is becoming very frustrating because I rely heavily on searching by filename to locate specific photos, and I am losing a significant amount of time trying to find images that should be easy to locate.

Has anyone else experienced this issue, or is there a known fix?

Thank you.

Hi ​@davidr73669643 ​@Susan25434440uq8d,

Thanks for reaching out and sharing your feedback. I discussed this behavior with the product team.

For searches that are intended to be constrained by keywords, the team recommends using the Keyword Filter (funnel icon) rather than relying solely on the natural language search box.
 

The examples you’ve provided, such as “PABU” + “female” and person-name searches returning unrelated semantic matches, are helpful because they highlight cases where natural language relevance and keyword matching may not align with the expected workflow.

Could you please confirm:
• Are the values (e.g. PABU, female, person names) stored as keywords, captions, or both?
• If you use the Keyword Filter instead of the search box, do you get the expected results?

I’ll continue sharing examples like these with the team, as they help illustrate workflows where users are expecting strict keyword matching rather than broader semantic search behavior.

Thanks,
Anshul Saini

source collection from LR Classic and LR web copy both contain 1,890 photos.  Searching LRC for “Carrigafoyle” returns 14 photos which is the correct number.  Searching LR web returns 1,048 photos.

Agree 1000000% I have tagged my photos with metadata tags that have always worked. Now they don't. For example, I use bird banding codes for bird species, e.g. PABU is Painted Bunting. Previously a search for “PABU” and “female” brought up all my images of female painted buntings. And ONLY those images, no other images were retrieved. Now that same search brings up some painted bunting images and lots of images of my spouse, my daughters, etc. Additionally, it omits lots of images of painted buntings; they are not retrieved by the “improved” search engine.

This is useless. Please

1. Post a reply to these questions so that we know Adobe is listening.
2. Give us an option to revert to the previous search engine, or
3. FIX IT!

The search and keyword function is now completely broken in Lightroom web. I add keywords to images directly in the web interface, and an hour later, they still do not show up when searching for those exact keywords. This is unacceptable, and I will need to find another option for creating this image library.