Google Photos is a powerful tool for organizing your digital pictures. Its facial recognition feature automatically groups photos of the same person together. Here is a step-by-step guide on how to label faces in Google Photos to better organize your albums.
Step 1: Enable Face Grouping
Before you can label faces, you need to ensure that the face grouping feature is enabled in your Google Photos settings. To do this, open the Google Photos app on your device or go to photos.google.com on your desktop.
On mobile, tap your profile picture or initial at the top right corner, then tap “Photos settings”. On desktop, click on the three horizontal lines (menu) in the top left corner, then click “Settings”.
Scroll down to the “Group similar faces” section and switch the “Face Grouping” toggle on. If this option is grayed out, it might be because face grouping isn’t available in your country due to privacy laws.
Step 2: Navigate to “People & Pets”
Once face grouping is enabled, Google Photos will automatically start grouping photos with the same face together. To see these groups, navigate to the “People & Pets” section. On mobile, tap “Search” at the bottom of the screen, then tap “People & Pets”. On desktop, click the search bar and select “People & Pets” from the dropdown menu.
Step 3: Add a Name to a Face Group
Now you can start labeling the face groups. Tap or click on a face group to open it. Then, tap or click on “Add a name” at the top of the screen. Enter the name of the person in the face group. If they’re in your Google Contacts, you can choose their name from the suggested list. If not, you can manually enter their name. Then, press “Done” or hit the Enter key.
Step 4: Confirm Additional Faces
Sometimes Google Photos might ask you to confirm if additional photos belong to the same person. This helps improve the accuracy of the face grouping. To confirm, tap or click “Yes” if the photo is of the same person or “No” if it’s not.
Step 5: Merge Face Groups
Google Photos might create separate face groups for the same person if their appearance has changed significantly over time. For instance, photos of a person as a child and as an adult might end up in different groups. You can manually merge these groups.
First, select one of the face groups to merge. Click or tap on the three dots in the top right corner, then select “Merge with another face group”. Then, select the face group you want to merge it with. Google Photos will combine the two groups into one.
Step 6: Hide or Remove a Person
If you want to remove a person from “People & Pets”, you can do so by hiding or removing their face group. To hide a face group, tap or click on the three dots in the top right corner of the face group, then select “Hide this person”. To remove a face group, open the group, tap or click on the three dots in the top right corner, then select “Remove this face group”.
Labeling faces in Google Photos can help you organize your photos better and find specific pictures faster. Whether you’re looking for that one adorable photo of your pet, or trying to find all the pictures of a friend from a trip, the face labeling feature makes it easy. It’s a simple process, but it can make a world of difference in managing your digital photo collection.
