Organizing your photos can be a headache. Once you add so many photos, things can become unwieldy, complicating the process of finding the right picture.
Luckily, the Photos app can detect faces in your photos, allowing you to tag and group pictures of people in your photos. Here’s how to tag people’s faces in Apple’s Photo App.
How to Tag Someone’s Face in the Photos App
Once you’ve added pictures to your photo library, your iPhone or Mac will scan them for faces. This is done on-device, so your privacy stays intact. This is one wayyour Mac protects your privacy. If you use iCloud Photos, these tags will even sync across all your Apple devices while preserving your privacy.
Tagging Faces in the Photos App on an iPhone or iPad
To tag someone in a photo on your iPhone, here’s what you need to do:
Screenshot by Jarrett Smith – no attribution required
Now, this person’s tagged photos will appear in your People album. Your iPhone will do its best to discover more pictures of this person and automatically tag them based on facial analysis.
Tagging Faces in the Photos App on a Mac
To tag someone’s face in the macOS version of the Photos app, follow these steps:
you’re able to also clickViewin the menu bar and selectShow Face Namesso that the next time you open a picture, all the faces will be circled. If you’ve already tagged faces, those faces will have names below them. Click the box below to the circled face to add or change a name.
If your Mac doesn’t recognize a face in a photo, you can open the Information pane and hit theplus (+) circleon it. A new circle will appear in the middle of the photo. You can drag this around the face you’d like and tag it.
How to Find Photos by Tagged Faces in Apple Photos
Now that you have a face or two tagged, finding photos of those faces will become much more manageable. Finding a particular picture of someone becomes a breeze.
Finding Tagged Photos on an iPhone or iPad
All the tagged faces are arranged in a photo album calledPeople. You can find all the faces you have tagged and some that your device has identified for tagging. Select an album to see all the tagged photos of a particular person.
By default, Photos will show you a collage of images of that person, hiding some if they look similar. If you’d like to see all the photos of that person tagged so far, tap onShow Morebelow the highlighted photo.
you may also look at other faces that your iPhone thinks might be the person tagged in the album. Tap theellipsis (…)icon at the top-right corner and selectConfirm Additional Photos. Your iPhone will show you photos that it thinks might be the person you’ve tagged. Confirm by tappingYesorNo.
Once you have tagged people in photos, they will also show up when you search for their names in the Photos app orSpotlight search on your iPhone.
Finding Tagged Photos on a Mac
Select thePeoplealbum from the Photos app’s sidebar to view all your tagged faces. Photos will display all the tagged images here and any face grouped waiting for a tag.
you may also do a multi-level search using the search bar at the top. For example, you can search for someone taken at a particular location or wearing a specific shirt. This can expedite finding a particular picture.
Once you’re inside someone’s tagged album, if you scroll down all the way to the bottom, you’ll see the option toConfirm Additional Photosof that person. Click that to see all the photos your Mac thinks are the tagged person for you to confirm or deny.
Of course, you can alsouse Spotlight search on your Macto find people you have tagged. However, if you’vemoved your photo library to an external drive, you won’t be able to search using Spotlight anymore.
How to Edit a Tagged Face From the People Album in Apple Photos
While your iPhone and Mac rely onmachine learning algorithmsto find people’s faces, it can get faces wrong sometimes. Unfortunately, it doesn’t always tag the correct person, or you might have misidentified a face. We’ll teach you how to fix the incorrect tag below.
Editing a Tagged Face in Photos on an iPhone or iPad
If you find an incorrectly tagged photo on your iPhone or iPad, you have two ways to correct it.
Find the photo and swipe up to reveal the tagged faces. Tap thesmall circleat the bottom-left corner of the image representing the tagged person. Then, chooseThis Is Not [Person’s Name]from the context menu.
Alternatively, you can head to thePeoplealbum and select the person incorrectly tagged. In the list of all their photos, find the one that has been incorrectly tagged. Then, long-press the photo in the list and selectThis is Not [Person’s Name].
Sometimes, your iPhone might find enough differences between photos of one person that it makes multiple albums. Luckily, they made it simple to combine these photos.
Go to the People album to combine two or more albums of the same person. Then, press the select button in the top right. Now, select the albums you’d like to combine and tapMergeat the bottom-right corner.
Editing a Tagged Face in Photos on a Mac
If someone has been incorrectly tagged on the Mac, you can head to their photo, clickView >Show Face Namesfrom the menu bar, and then type the correct name under their face.
You can also visit thePeoplealbum and select the tagged person. Find the incorrectly tagged picture andControl-click it. From the context menu, selectThis Is Not [Person’s Name].
If your Mac shows two or more albums of the same person, you’re able to combine them from thePeoplealbum. Hold down theCommandkey and select all the albums of the same person.Control-click and chooseMerge X People(X being the number of albums you selected).
Tag People to Find Photos Easily
Tagging your friends, colleagues, and family members in photos can give you an edge in photo management. With this, you’ll be able to find people’s photos quickly and efficiently. It’s one of the many ways to master the built-in Photos app on your Apple device.
