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
You can also use Search to find different features and collections in Google Photos, like People & pets, Albums, Documents, and more.
Important:
- Some features aren't available in all geographic regions, all domains, or all account types.
- To search your photos using Gemini in Ask Photos, you'll first need to opt-in to Gemini features in Photos. Learn how to start using Ask Photos.
Before you get started
Download and install the Google Photos app.
Search your photos
Important: To easily search and manage your photos, you can apply a label to people or pets that appear in photos grouped by Google Photos. Learn how to set up Face Groups.
You can use Search to find combinations of people and pets, locations, things, dates, and more using descriptive free-text:
- On your Android device, open the Google Photos app
.
- At the bottom, tap Search.
- Tap the search box.
- Enter what you want to find.
- You can use phrases like ‘Alice and me laughing,’ ‘colorful sunsets in Mexico,’ ‘Emma at the playground,’ and ‘drinking tea by the fireplace.’
- You can only search with a name or nickname if you’ve labeled people or pets. Learn how to set up Face Groups.
- To search for yourself using ‘me,’ make sure to set your face as ‘me’ in the ‘people or pets’ section of the app. Learn how to label your face group.
- You can use quotation marks if you want to find exact text matches in filenames, camera models, captions, or text within photos. If you don’t use quotation marks, you’ll get a wider range of results not limited to text.
- You can use phrases like ‘Alice and me laughing,’ ‘colorful sunsets in Mexico,’ ‘Emma at the playground,’ and ‘drinking tea by the fireplace.’
- Depending on the query and the photos in your library, the results page may include 2 sections:
- The most relevant results are labeled as “Best match.” To view all of the photos in this section, tap the last photo in the preview with the plus sign.
- The results below “Best match” are shown in reverse chronological order.
Tips:
- At first, searching for unsaved shared content is available only in classic search.
- In your search results, you may find photos and videos from the shared albums or conversations you didn't save in your library. You’ll find a shared content badge at the bottom left of the shared item.
- To exclude the items shared with you from your search results: At the top right of the search results page, tap More
Include shared with me.
- To exclude the items shared with you from your search results: At the top right of the search results page, tap More
- An ownership tag shows on the shared item.
- To show which album or conversation an item is from: At the top left, tap the owner Profile picture or Initial.
- Natural language queries work best in English.
Include shared with me.In the Search tab, you can find suggestions to help you:
- Navigate to pages of people and pets
- Reissue recent searches
- Navigate to other pages in the app
- On your Android device, open the Google Photos app
- At the bottom, tap Search.
- Find the faces shortcuts.
- To go to the page of one of your top people or pets: Tap on their face.
- To find pages of other people and pets: Tap More
.
.- You can find recent searches and other suggestions below the faces shortcuts.
Tips:
- You can only see faces shortcuts when the Face Groups feature is on. Learn how to turn Face Groups on.
- You can also ask Google Photos for photos, information, and assistance with a conversational agent. Learn more about Ask Photos.
Search for your collections & other features
From the Collections view, you can find People & pets, Albums, Documents, and Places. You can also find other content organized in:
- Archive
- Favorites
- Locked Folder
- Partner Sharing
- Recently Added
- Screenshots
- Trash
- Videos
You can also search for these items:
- On your Android device, open the Google Photos app
- At the bottom, tap Search.
- Enter the name of the item that you want to find.
- You can use words like “Abigail,” “Documents,” “Favorites,” and more.
- When it appears in the search suggestions, tap the item’s name.