How to find photos by person, pet, place or memory on iPhone

Try search before building more albums

Photos can find many things without any filing from you. Tap the search button and Apple suggests dates, locations and people you have named. You can type a date, a city, a business name, a category such as beach or sunset, an event, a named person or pet, or text such as a phone number.

Apple notes that on supported devices with Apple Intelligence you can also describe a picture in natural language. That feature depends on your device, language and region, so treat it as a bonus rather than something every iPhone has.

People & Pets: name them once

Apple’s Photos app sorts photos of people, dogs and cats into the People & Pets collection. To name someone, open a photo, swipe up, tap the person or pet marked with a question mark, then tap Edit Name and Photos. When you name them, they are named in other photos in your library.

You can mark the people you photograph most as favorites, fix a wrong match by tapping the misidentified person, and hide someone you do not want shown. When you use iCloud Photos, Apple says People & Pets stays up to date on all your devices. Apple’s page also describes fixing misidentifications, so check the results when it matters.

1. Open Photos and tap Collections, then People & Pets.
2. Tap a person or pet and choose Name This Person or Name This Pet.
3. If someone is missing, tap Add People at the bottom to see more faces.
4. Search the name later to find all their photos.

Places: browse your library on a map

Tap Library, then the options button, then Show Map. Apple says only pictures and videos with embedded location information are included, so photos without GPS data will not appear. Pinch to zoom, and tap a thumbnail to see everything taken in that location.

You can also open a trip or recent day in Collections and show that collection on a map. If you plan to share pictures, remember that location data can travel with a photo. Our guide on removing location data before sharing covers that.

Memories: a shortcut to meaningful moments

Apple describes Memories as personalized collections that feature a significant person, pet, place, activity or event from your library. Open Collections and swipe under Memories, or tap Memories to see them all, then select one to view its photos and videos.

From a memory you can show all items, search within it, share it or delete the memory itself, and mark favorites for later. Memories are suggestions made by the app, so they will not cover every moment you care about.

What still needs a human decision

Search, people and places make finding easier, but they do not tell you which photos to keep. Fifty near-identical frames of a birthday still need a choice, and so do screenshots that Photos does not group by person.

Use these tools to narrow a pile, then decide. GallerySort offers swipe-to-keep-or-delete and tapping an album to file photos, which suits that second step. It does not rename people or change how Apple Photos recognizes them, and our guide on organizing iPhone photos explains how to keep an album system small.