How to tag people’s faces in Apple’s Photos app on your iPhone, iPad, and Mac

Organizing your photos can be tricky. Once you add so many photos, things can get unwieldy, complicating the process of finding the right photo.

Luckily, the Photos app can detect faces in your photos, so you can tag and group photos of people in your photos. Here’s how to tag people’s faces in Apple’s Photos app.

How to tag someone’s face in the Photos app

After you add photos to your photo library, your iPhone or Mac will scan them for faces. This is done on the device so that your privacy remains intact. This is one way your Mac protects your privacy. If you use iCloud Photos, these tags will even sync across all your Apple devices while maintaining your privacy.

Tagging faces in the Photos app on an iPhone or iPad

To tag someone in a photo on your iPhone, you need to do the following:

1. Scroll to a photo with a person you want to tag.
2. press the Information (I) icon at the bottom or swipe up on the photo.
3. Once the Photos app has identified a face, you’ll see a small circle icon with the face in the bottom right of the image. A blue circle with a question mark in it means the face hasn’t been tagged yet. Tap it.
4. Select Name this person from the context menu.
5. On the next screen, name them and press Next one.

This person’s tagged photos will now appear in your People album. Your iPhone will do its best to discover more photos of this person and tag them automatically based on facial analysis.

How to tag faces in the Photos app on a Mac

Follow these steps to tag someone’s face in the macOS version of the Photos app:

1. Open a photo with a face you want to tag in Apple’s Photos app.
2. Click on the Information (I) button on the toolbar in the upper right corner. An info window will appear with details about the photo. All faces found in the photo will be listed below the keyword field.
3. Double-click the face you want to tag.
4. Now, you’ll see Add name in the top left corner.

You can also click Display in the menu bar and select Show face names so that the next time you open a photo, all the faces are circled. If you have already tagged faces, there will be names below those faces. In the box below, click on 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 Panel and click plus (+) circle am working on it. A new circle will appear in the center of the photo. You can drag this around the face you want and tag it.

Search photos by tagged faces in Apple Photos

Now that you’ve tagged a face or two, finding photos of those faces becomes much more manageable. Finding a particular photo of someone becomes a piece of cake.

Find tagged photos on an iPhone or iPad

All tagged faces are arranged in a photo album called People. You can find all the faces you’ve tagged and some faces your device has identified for tagging. Select an album to view all tagged photos of a specific person.

By default, Photos shows you a collage of images of that person, hiding some if they look similar. To see all photos of the person tagged so far, tap Show more below the featured photo.

You can also look at other faces that your iPhone thinks is the person tagged in the album. Press ellipse (…) icon in the top right corner and select Attach additional photos. Your iPhone will show you photos that it thinks are the person you tagged. Confirm by tapping Yes or No.

After you tag people in photos, they’ll also appear when you search for their name in the Photos app or in Spotlight searches on your iPhone.

Find tagged photos on a Mac

Select the People album from the Photos app sidebar to see all your tagged faces. Photos here show all tagged images and each grouped face waiting for a tag.

You can also search at multiple levels using the search bar at the top. For example, you can search for someone who was recorded in a specific location or who is wearing a specific shirt. This can speed up finding a particular image.

Once you’re in someone’s tagged album and you scroll all the way to the bottom, you’ll see the option to Attach additional photos of that person. Click that to see all the photos that your Mac thinks are the tagged person and which you can confirm or reject.

Of course, you can also use Spotlight search on your Mac to find people you’ve tagged. However, if you have moved your photo library to an external drive, you will no longer be able to search with Spotlight.

How to edit a tagged face from the People album in Apple Photos

Even though your iPhone and Mac rely on machine learning algorithms to find people’s faces, sometimes faces can be wrong. Unfortunately, the right person isn’t always tagged, otherwise you might have misidentified a face. Below we will teach you how to correct the incorrect tag.

Edit a tagged face in photos on iPhone or iPad

If you find an incorrectly tagged photo on your iPhone or iPad, there are two ways you can fix it.

Find the photo and swipe up to reveal the tagged faces. Press small circle in the bottom left corner of the image representing the tagged person. Then choose This is not [Person’s Name] from the context menu.

Alternatively, you can go to the People album and select the person who is incorrectly tagged. In the list of all their photos, find the photo that is incorrectly tagged. Then long press the photo in the list and select This is not [Person’s Name].

Sometimes your iPhone finds enough differences between photos of one person that it can create multiple albums. Luckily, they’ve made it easy to combine these photos.

To combine two or more albums from the same person, go to the People album. Then press the selection button at the top right. Now select the albums you want to combine and tap To combine in the bottom right corner.

Edit a tagged face in photos on a Mac

If someone is wrongly tagged on Mac, you can go to their photo and click View > Show face names in the menu bar, then type the correct name below their face.

You can also visit the People album and select the tagged person. Find the mis-tagged image and Check-Click It. Select from the context menu This is not [Person’s Name].

If your Mac displays two or more albums from the same person, you can combine them using the People album. Press and hold the key Command button and select all albums of the same person. Check-click and choose Merge X people (X is the number of albums you selected).

Tag people to easily find photos

Tagging your friends, colleagues, and family members in photos can give you an edge in photo management. It allows you 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.