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

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After the April 2026 update, the search function seems to have (somehow) gotten worse. I know that the update says it addresses search problems but it seems to have broken things.

In all of my photos in Lightroom, I identify people by name and put them into the captions. Prior to this, I could search lightroom and all of this person’s photos would show up. Suddenly I am getting the most BIZARRE results when searching people’s names. The name “Cait” brings back a ton of cat pictures for example - i guess it thinks i am looking for cats?

Not everything needs AI. My entire workflow has been disrupted by this, does anyone know how to fix this?

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cehilton

Participating Frequently

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.

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davidr73669643

Participating Frequently

Single-term searches work fine for me as well. But my question was about a search that contains two parameters, PABU and female. That search, or others that combine two terms in order to find a subset of the available images, brings up dozens of irrelevant images of females, as if the search engine was ignoring the other search term. Similar two- or three-term searches fail miserably as well.

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davidr73669643

Participating Frequently

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

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

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R

RedeemingLight

Known Participant

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.

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Anshul_Saini

Community Manager

Hi @RedeemingLight,

Thanks for reporting this. For keyword constrained searches, please use the keyword filter by selecting the funnel icon.

The behavior you’re describing, where keywords added in Lightroom Web are not searchable even after an hour, is not something we’d expect to see normally.

Could you please try the search again using the funnel > Keyword and let us know whether you’re still seeing the same delay?

If the issue persists, it may help us determine whether this is something specific to your account or an isolated indexing issue rather than expected search behavior.

Please also let us know:
• Approximately how long it takes before newly added keywords become searchable
• Whether this happens with all keywords or only certain ones

Best,
Anshul Saini

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