Use the People & Pets album in Photos on your iPhone, iPad or iPod touch

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 the People & Pets album

The Photos app organises the images of the people, dogs and cats in the People & Pets album (or the People album 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 album:

1. Open the Photos app.

2. Tap the Albums tab.

3. Tap the People & Pets album.

If you named a person or pet in the Photos app, you can also find them under the Search tab. Just tap Search, then type their name.

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

Add someone to the People & Pets album

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

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

3. Tap Name This Person or Name This Pet and type their name or tap the name if it shows up.

4. Tap Next, then tap Done.

Put a name to a face

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

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

2. Tap Add Name at the top of the screen.

3. Type the person's name or select their name if it shows up.

4. Tap Next, then tap Done.

Merge photos of the same person

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

1. Go to the People album and tap Select.

2. Select the people you want to merge.

3. Tap Merge near the bottom of the screen.

4. Tap Yes to confirm the merge.

Use "Feature Less" in the People & Pets album

With iOS 14 and later, you can have the Photos app suggest certain people less frequently. This adjusts the way the Photos app curates your Memories, Featured photos and the photos that you see in the Photos widget – so you see fewer photos of these people. Here’s how:

1. Open the People album and tap the person's thumbnail.

2. Tap the More button in the top right-hand corner.

3. Tap "Feature [Name] Less".

4. Select an option, such as Feature This Person Less or Remove This Person From People & Pets, then tap Confirm.

If you choose to feature someone less, you'll have to reset your Memories settings in order to see that person again in the People album. Go to Settings > Photos, tap Reset Suggested Memories, then tap Reset to confirm.

Favourite people

Mark the People who you access the most as a Favourite so that it's easier to find them. If you haven’t set any Favourites yet, you’ll see the Favourite buttonon the photos. To favourite someone, just tap the Favourite button.

You can also tap the person’s thumbnail, tap the More button, then tap “Add [Name] to Favourites”. To favourite multiple people at once, tap Select, tap each person who you want to favourite, then tap Favourite at the bottom of the People album.

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 album, then tap the person or pet.

2. Tap Select, then tap Show Faces to focus on just their face in each photo.

3. Tap the photo that you want to use.

4. Tap the Share button, 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 album, 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 More buttonin the bottom right, then tap “This is Not [This Person]”.