iOS 14 added captions to Photos. Can we access them?

Question

Created Jan ’21

Replies 3

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New in iOS 14, we can now drag a photo up in the Photos app and add a caption.

Is it possible to access this caption via PhotoKit or any other framework?

I don't see a field for it on PHAsset. I've also tried the following snippet to see if I can see them stored on the image:

Code Block swiftlet assets = PHAsset.fetchAssets(with: .image, options: nil)
        assets.enumerateObjects { (asset, index, stop) in
            let options = PHContentEditingInputRequestOptions()
            options.isNetworkAccessAllowed = true
            asset.requestContentEditingInput(with: options) { (input, properties) in
                guard let input = input,
                      let fullSizeImageURL = input.fullSizeImageURL,
                      let imageSource = CGImageSourceCreateWithURL(fullSizeImageURL as CFURL, nil),
                      let imageProperties = CGImageSourceCopyPropertiesAtIndex(imageSource, 0, nil) else {
                    return
                }
                
                dump(imageProperties)
            }
        }

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Answer 1

jimblaauboer OP

Jan ’21

My understanding is that the caption does not get stored with the image metadata until the photo is exported (e.g. Share->SaveToFiles). Instead the caption is stored in a seperate place. I was told by Apple Developer Technical Support (DTS) that there is no API to retrieve this. However I have seen at least one App Store app that does. There’s another similar question posted at https://developer.apple.com/forums/thread/665185 .

1

Answer 2

KojiKabuto OP

Apr ’21

Just wondering if anyone has been able to solve this. I've also come across a couple apps in that are able to read the caption just fine, but I've not been able to read via PHAsset or other means (3rd party libs).

1

Answer 3

apparvind OP

Aug ’21

Those apps probably do it via SQL query, but if there is a way to do it via Photokit it would be great to know.

1