Set up & manage your face groups

Important: This feature isn’t available in all geographic regions, all domains, or all account types.

To easily search and manage your photos, you can apply a label to people or pets that appear in photos grouped by Google Photos.

Turn Face Groups on or off

You can stop grouping photos based on faces that appear in your photos.

If you turn off Face Groups, you delete:

• Face groups in your account
• Face models used to create those face groups
• Face labels you created

Learn about Google Photos' Face Groups retention policy.

To turn it on or off:

1. On your Android phone or tablet, open the Google Photos app .
2. Sign in to your Google Account.
3. At the top, tap your Account profile photo or Initials.
4. Tap Photos settings Privacy.
5. Turn Face Groups on or off.
   • To turn off Face Groups only for photos of pets, turn off Show pets with people.

Organize your Face Groups

Step 1: Find photos of a person or pet

1. On your Android phone or tablet, open the Google Photos app .
2. At the bottom, tap Collections People & pets.
3. Tap a face.

Tip: If you can’t find People & pets:

• The feature isn’t available in your geographic region.
• You turned Face Groups off in settings. Learn how to turn on Face Groups.
• No face groups have been created.

Step 2: Apply a label

Important: Only you can find the private face labels you choose, even if you share those photos.

1. At the top of a face group, click Add a name.
2. Enter a name or nickname.

You can search with that label. Learn more about searching in your photos.

Manage your Face Groups

Combine face groups

If the same person is in more than one grouping, you can merge the groups.

1. Label one of the face groups with a name or nickname.
2. Label the other face group with the same name or nickname, choosing from the suggestions.
3. When you confirm the second name or nickname, Google Photos asks if you want to merge the face groups.

You might get a suggestion to merge 2 face groups. If they’re the same person, tap Yes.

Change or remove a label

You 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.

Hide a face from your featured memories

Important: The “hide a face” settings apply to photos in the featured memories carousel.

1. On your Android phone or tablet, open the Google Photos app .
2. At the top, tap your account profile photo or initial Photos settings.
3. Tap Preferences Memories Hide faces.
4. Under “Show less” or “Blocked,” tap Select faces.
   • Show less: You won’t get memories about them, but they may still appear in group photos included in memories.
   • Blocked: They won’t appear in memories, including group photos with others.
5. Choose who you want to hide.
6. Tap Done.
   • To show a face that was previously hidden, next to the face, tap Remove .

Tips:

• It may take some time for these changes to take effect.
• Face hiding may not work perfectly in all photos.

Remove an item from a group

If you find a photo that’s in the wrong group, you can take it out.

1. On your Android phone or tablet, open the Google Photos app .
2. At the bottom, tap Collections People & pets.
3. Select the face group that you want to remove something from.
4. Tap More   Remove results.
5. Select the photos or videos you want to remove from the group.
6. At the top, tap Remove.

Tip: If you remove an item from a group, it won’t delete the photo or video from your Google Photos library.

Change a feature photo

1. On your Android phone or tablet, open the Google Photos app .
2. At the bottom, tap Collections People & pets.
3. Tap a face group.
4. At the top, tap More Change feature photo.
5. Select a photo to make it the featured photo.

Learn about face models

Face Groups occurs in 3 steps:

1. We detect whether any photo has a face in it.
2. If the Face Groups feature is on, algorithms are used to create face models that numerically represent the images of faces, predict the similarity of different images of faces, and estimate whether different images represent the same face.
3. Photos with very similar faces that are likely to be of the same person are grouped together in a face group. You can always remove a photo from a face group if you think it's in the wrong group.

You can also add a name or nickname label to any face group.

When Face Groups is on, Google Photos may 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 isn't visible.

Face groups, face labels & sharing

• By default, face groups and labels in your account are only visible to you.
• Face groups aren't shared when you share photos.
• Face labels are private to each account and aren't shared across accounts.
• You can choose to label a face group as "Me."
  • This may help your contacts’ Google Photos apps recognize your face in photos, and get suggestions to share photos of you with you. Learn how to label your face group.
  • You can gain a sense of where you’re over time. You can know where you were at different times in your life based on the locations of photos where your face appears.

When Face Groups is on, you let us know that you want us to make models of the faces that appear in your photos. These models may be considered biometric data in some jurisdictions.

To delete your face models, turn off Face Groups. We will store and use your face models, face groups, and face labels until you either delete them or your Google Photos account is inactive for more than two years. Learn about Google Photos’ Face Groups retention policy.

Remove, add, or change people & pet labels

If Google Photos misses or incorrectly groups a photo, you can change, remove, or add a photo to a face group.This feature isn’t available in all countries.

Change which face group a photo belongs to

You can add, remove, or change a face label when Google Photos labels the wrong person or pet.

1. On your Android phone or tablet, open the Google Photos app .
2. Select a photo  tap More .
3. Scroll to “People” and tap Edit .
4. Remove, add, or change a label:
   • To remove a label: On the face label, tap Remove .
   • To add a label: Under “Available to add,” tap Add  on the face label. Then, in the photo, tap a label to add, or select Add  to create a new label.
   • To change a label:
     1. On the face label, tap Remove .
     2. Under “Available to add,” on the face label, tap Add .
     3. Select a face label to add.
5. Tap Done.

Filter a face group

You can filter a face group by the other people in the photo, location of the photo, activities in the photo, and more.

1. On your Android phone or tablet, open the Google Photos app .
2. At the bottom, tap Collections People & pets.
3. Tap a face group.
4. To filter the face group, tap Filter .
5. Tap the filters that you want to apply.

Tip: The filters don’t apply permanently. The next time you view the face group, you’ll find all of the photos.

Label your face group as “me”

When you label your face group as "me," you:

• Get more personalized creations. For example, a highlight video that has photos of you.
• Get personalized search. You can search “me” to easily find photos of yourself.
• Make it easier for contacts to get suggestions to share with you. When your contacts take photos of you, they may get a suggestion to share photos they have of you with you.
• Gain a sense of where you're over time. You can know where you were at different times in your life based on the locations of photos where your face appears.

Learn how to label your face group as “me.”

Refresh face groups

Important: If you’re experiencing other issues with your face groups, like if you have Face Groups turned on but can’t find any face groups at all, these troubleshooting steps might not help.

If your face groups contain old photos, but not new ones, don’t turn Face Groups off and on. Instead, leave Face Groups on and try this:

1. In your device settings, turn off power saving.
2. Plug in your device to charge.
3. Open the Google Photos app .
   • Let your device sit overnight.
   • Make sure your device is plugged in and connected to Wi-Fi all night.

Tips:

• If only some of your photos appear in face groups, try the process again for one more night. You can also try to turn off screen timeout while your device is charging and open to the Google Photos app.
• Always make sure your app is updated to the latest version for best results.

Related resources

• Label your face group
• Face Groups retention policy
• Search by people, things & places in your photos