Skip to content

Photo Search: Quickly Find What You’re Looking For | iOS 17 Guide

Looking for a particular photo or album? There’s a better way to find it than painstakingly scrolling through your entire Camera Roll.

Every photo taken with the device camera is automatically tagged with information like the date, time, and location it was taken. Additionally, the Photos app uses machine learning to detect the content of your pictures, so it can recognize faces, animals, and objects.

Open Photos and press the Search tab. Here you’ll see a range of search suggestions, including frequently visited places, common photo categories, and common groups of people.

If what you’re looking for isn’t included here, tap in the text box at the top to engage the keyboard for a manual search. As you type, you’ll see suggested search terms appear. These represent tags: queries that the app will recognize. Tap any of these tags to add them to the search bar.

You can use generic terms like “car,” “beach,” or “dog” and Photos will know what to look for. You can search for exact locations and dates to help narrow down your search, and you can even try tags like “slo-mo” or “Portrait” to capture specific types of photo or video. You can add as many tags as you like to a search.

Tap Search when you’re done adding criteria and the app will do its best to surface the exact shots you’re looking for.

Sounds familiar

In iOS 17, you can search by even more criteria – including sounds. Try searching for “applause” or “laughter” to surface videos and Live Photos containing that type of audio. Neat!