Did you know you can name the people in your photos? Doing so generates a dedicated album for each person. This is because Photos is capable of both detecting faces of people and differentiating among them.
I mentioned this in Remember When?, one of my earliest entries for Mac Mondays, as part of an overview of the Photos app on the Mac. Photos processes faces in the background on your devices when you’re not using the app. If you use iCloud Photos in macOS 10.15 or later, this information is also securely synced among your Apple devices.
There are several ways to approach this feature. You can browse all detected or identified people and review photos of them, or interact with a specific photo and identify the people shown within.
Browse People on Mac
In Photos on Mac, choose People on the sidebar. At first, you’ll see people who have been detected or identified among your photos, including anyone you’ve named, and your favorites among these at the top of the list.
Mouse over an unnamed face to add their name. If the person is in your contacts, you can select their entry. Double-click on a person to see more photos of them.
Now, scroll down to the very bottom of a person’s screen (or press End or fn+Down) and you’ll find some additional actions, including the ability to Review More Photos. In this exercise, you can click Yes or press Return to approve a match, or click No or press Delete to deny.
Browse People on Mobile
In Photos on iPhone and iPad, choose Albums and then People. Tap on a person to add their name and see more photos.
To review photos of the person, tap 
at the top and then Review Photos. By default, all reviewable images are selected. Tap any that does not carry the person’s likeness to remove the checkmark. Choose Review More Photos to see if there are others identified based on this assessment or tap Done.
Review One Photo on Mac
In Photos on Mac, open a photo and choose View > Show Face Names to see detected faces and name any that aren’t identified. Or, Get Info on an individual photo to see whether a person has been detected/identified. The latter ability, described below, is currently unique to the Mac in that you are not limited to faces detected by Photos.
To identify undetected faces (as demonstrated above):
- In the Info window, click
for Add a Face - If necessary, click on the photo to activate that window
- Drag the circle over the face you want to identify
- Drag the dot on the right to expand the circle, if needed
- Click Click to Name and type the name of the face, selecting from your contacts as desired
Review One Photo on Mobile
In Photos on iPhone and iPad, open a photo and swipe up on it or tap 
at the bottom. This displays more info as well as detected/identified people within.
Tap on a person with a 
badge to name them. Tap on an identified person to deny their likeness and indicate who they are, if appropriate. You can also review additional photos containing this face to confirm or deny, as described earlier.
Starting in macOS 14 and iOS 17, Photos can also detect and identify pets, too! What ever will you do with this advanced capability? Share your insights in the comments below.
Also, here are Apple’s support articles on finding and identifying photos of people (and pets) in Photos on Mac, Photos on iPhone, and Photos on iPad.
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