Find People & Pets in Photos on your iPhone or iPad

The Photos app recognises the faces of people and pets in your photos and groups them together. You can name the people or pets in your photos, mark your favourites and more.

Here's how it works

The Photos app scans your photos to help you quickly recognise the people, scenes and objects within the photos. And in iOS 17, iPadOS 17 and later, the Photos app can recognise dogs and cats too. Depending on the number of photos that you have, you can watch a Memory movie of them. And when you have iCloud Photos turned on, the people you favourite or name stay up to date across your Apple devices.

Find someone in People & Pets

The Photos app organises the images of the people, dogs and cats in the People & Pets collection (or People if no dogs or cats are identified). You’ll see a face thumbnail for each person or pet your device recognises. To find someone in your People & Pets collection:

1. Open Photos, then tap Collections.

2. Swipe up, then tap People & Pets.

If you’ve named a person or pet in the Photos app, you can also find them with the Search tab on the main screen. Just tap the Search tab , then type their name.

Find out what to do if you can’t see your pets in People & Pets

Add someone to People & Pets

1. Open a photo of the person or pet that you want to add.

2. Tap the Info button, tap the face of the person or pet with a question mark, then tap Edit Name and Photos.

   

3. Tap Name This Person or Name This Pet and type their name or tap the name if it shows up. If the person or pet is previously recognised, tap Merge Photos.

4. Tap Done, then tap Done again.

Put a name to a face

Photos suggests names from Contacts, but you can add a name manually to a person that’s already in your People & Pets:

1. Open the People & Pets collection, then tap the thumbnail of the person you want to name.

2. Tap Name This Person, then type the person’s name or select their name if it shows up.

3. Tap Done.

Merge photos of the same person

Sometimes the same person is identified in more than one group within People & Pets. To merge all of the photos under one group:

1. Go to People & Pets, then tap Edit.

2. Select the people you want to merge.

3. Tap the More button, then tap Merge.

4. Tap Merge Photos to confirm the merge.

Change how often a person is featured

You can get the Photos app to feature certain people less frequently or not feature them at all. This adjusts the way the Photos app curates your Memories, Featured photos and the photos you see in the Photos widget – so you see less photos of these people or pets. Here's how:

1. Open the People & Pets collection.

2. Touch and hold a thumbnail.

3. Tap Don’t Feature [Name].

4. Select an option, such as Feature This Person Less or Never Feature This Person, then tap Confirm.

If you choose to feature someone less, you’ll have to reset their Memories settings in order to see that person again in People & Pets. Open Photos, touch and hold a thumbnail, tap Reset [Name] Feature Settings, then tap Reset [Name] Feature Settings again to confirm.

Favourite people

Mark the People who you access the most as a Favourite so that it's easier to find them. To favourite someone, touch and hold the person’s thumbnail, then tap Favourite. To favourite multiple people at once, tap Edit, tap each person you want to favourite, then tap the Favourite button at the bottom of People & Pets.

Change a thumbnail photo

Photos assigns a face thumbnail automatically for each person it recognises. If you want to use a different photo for someone's thumbnail, you can change it from their photo collection screen:

1. Open the People & Pets collection, then tap the person or pet.

2. Tap the Sort and Filter button , tap View Options, then tap Faces to focus on just their face in each photo.

3. Touch and hold the photo you want to use, then tap Make Key Photo.

Fix mixed-up names and faces

If you notice that there's a photo of someone in a collection that's misidentified, you can remove it:

1. In the People & Pets collection, tap the person or pet.

2. Tap Select, then tap each photo that isn't of the person or pet.

3. Tap the More button, then tap “This is Not [This Person]”.