Tech Desk 
Mar 02, 2025
Google Photos has made backing up photos and videos from your phone simple, working in the background and all your precious memories are saved to the cloud without you having to do anything else.
Gadinsider has compiled a guide on how to search images in Google Photos using some easy tricks.
Search images by person (or pet)
Google Photos can identify people and pets in your photos, and it can even identify individuals as they age over time.
- In the web app, you search for a person or pet via the search box atop the Google Photos interface or the People and Pets link on the left-hand navigation panel.
- In the mobile app, use the search icon at the bottom right of the screen.
However, if you’ve never recognized the person before or if the algorithm doesn’t recognise them, you will have to help out with the identification.
- Firstly, ensure face grouping is enabled (it’s on by default, but it never hurts to check). In the web app, click the gear icon (top right), select Group similar faces and enable Face Groups.
- In the mobile app, tap your icon on the top right, then go to Photos settings > Preferences > Group similar faces and enable Face Groups.
Once it’s done, you can now identify somebody in a photo and select it to view it full screen.
- In the web app, you can easily see a panel on the right with a list of detected faces, together with the names of any people you’ve already identified. If you can’t see the panel, click the info button (the “i” in a circle).
- In the mobile app, tap the three dots in the upper right corner; the detected faces, with their names, will be at the bottom of the screen.
Search images by location
Meanwhile, another way of seeking images in Google Photos is searching by location, which is more straightforward than managing faces. To see all the places Google Photos has tagged throughout the years, select Places from the navigation panel on the left (on the web) or use the Collections icon on the bottom (on the mobile app).
- On the web app, open the info panel to the side of an image when viewing it in full screen (the “i” in a circle button), then click Add a location.
- On the mobile app, swipe up until you see Location, then tap the pencil icon.
Search images by subject
In Google Photos, artificial intelligence (AI)-powered recognition is now advanced enough that it can find a lot of what you’re looking for: beaches, bedrooms, trains, people skiing, or the colour red.
However, the AI hasn’t yet progressed to the stage where it can easily cope with two of these searches together so it’s best to stick to one search term. You can’t search “cats and dogs,” but you can find either “cats” or “dogs” in separate searches.
It is important to note that Google Photos searches through the text in your images, too, which is another way of sifting through them.
Any search for “table” will return not just pictures with tables in them, but photos with the text “table” somewhere in the shot.
