Search your photos for anything. For example, you can search for:
- A wedding you attended last summer
- Your best friend
- A pet
- Your favorite city
Important: Some features are not available in all countries, all domains, or all account types.
Search your photos
- On your computer, go to photos.google.com/search.
- In the box at the top, enter what you want to find, for example:
- New York City
- A name or nickname, if you've labeled people or pets.
Find photos of a person or pet & add a name
To more easily search and manage your photos, you can apply a label to people or pets recognized by Google Photos.
Important: This feature is not available in all countries, all domains, or all account types.
Step 1: Find photos of a person or pet
- On your computer, go to photos.google.com/people.
- Click a face to see photos of them.
If you don't see a row of faces:
- The feature is not available in your country.
- You turned face groups off in settings. Learn how to turn on face grouping.
- No face groups have been recognized.
Tip: To find photos of a person without searching, click Explore People & Pets.
Step 2: Add a name
- At the top of a face group, click Add a name.
- Enter a name or nickname.
You'll be able to search with that name label using the search box. Only you can see the private face labels you choose, even if you share those photos.
Tip: To find photos without searching, click Explore. At the top, you can click items like People, Places, or Things.
Turn face grouping off or on
You can stop grouping similar faces together in your photos.
If you turn off face grouping, you delete:
- Face groups in your account
- Face models used to create those face groups
- Face labels you created
To turn face grouping off or on:
- On your computer, go to photos.google.com/settings.
- Next to "Group similar faces," click Show more
.
- Turn Face grouping off or on.
- To turn off face grouping only for pets, turn off Show pets with people.
Advanced tips
Change or remove a labelYou can edit or remove your face group labels.
- To change a label: Tap People folder
More
Edit name label.
- To remove a label: Tap People folder
More
Remove name label.
If the same person is in more than one grouping, you can merge them.
- Label one of the face groups with a name or nickname.
- Label the other face group with the same name or nickname, choosing from the suggestions.
- When you confirm the second name or nickname, Google Photos will ask if you want to merge the face groups.
You might get a suggestion to merge two face groups. If they're the same person, click Yes.
If you don't want to see a certain face group on your search page, you can remove it.
- On your computer, go to photos.google.com/people.
- At the top right, click Show & hide faces.
- Click the face you want to hide. To show a face, click the box again.
- At the top right, click Done.
If you see a photo that's in the wrong group, you can take it out.
- On your computer, go to photos.google.com/people.
- Click the face group you want to remove something from.
- Click More
Remove results.
- Select the photos or videos you want to remove from the group.
- At the top, click Remove.
Tip: If you remove an item from a group, it will not delete the photo or video from your Google Photos library.
- On your computer, go to photos.google.com/people.
- Click a face group.
- Click More
Change feature photo.
- Select a photo to make it the featured photo.
Face grouping occurs in 3 steps:
- We detect whether any photo has a face in it.
- If the face grouping feature is turned on, algorithmic models are used to predict the similarity of different images and estimate whether 2 images represent the same face.
- Photos that are likely to represent the same face are grouped together. You can always remove a photo from a group if you think it's in the wrong group.
When face grouping is on, Google Photos may also include photos in a particular group based on other characteristics. This includes photos being taken close together in time and detecting that a person is wearing the same clothing across photos when a face is not visible.
Face groups, face labels & sharing
- Face labels are private to each account and not shared across accounts.
- Face groups are not shared when you share photos.
- By default, face groups and labels in your account are only visible to you.
- You can choose to label a face group as “Me” to help your contacts’ Google Photos apps recognize your face in photos. This helps your contacts get suggestions to share photos of you with you. Learn how to label your face group.
When face grouping is turned on, you let us know that you want to make a model of your face.
To delete your models, turn off Face grouping.
Change which face group a photo belongs to
- On your computer, go to photos.google.com.
- Select a photo.
- Click Info
.
- Scroll to “People” and click Edit
.
- Remove, add, or change a label:
- To remove a label: On the face label, click Remove
.
- To add a label: Under “Available to add,” click Add
on the face label. Then, in the photo, click a label to add, or select Add
to create a new label.
- To change a label:
- On the face label, click Remove
.
- Under “Available to add,” on the face label, click Add
.
- Select a face label to add.
- On the face label, click Remove
- To remove a label: On the face label, click Remove
- Click Done.
Related page
Can't find your photos? Get help finding photos.