Google is releasing a small but powerful update to Google Photos search that will make finding images of friends, family, and pets even faster. We’ve made it simpler to search for new faces on Android and iOS, now that face shortcuts start appearing in your search experience as soon as you have Face Groups set up, making the people (and pets) you care about just a tap away.
What’s Changed in Google Photos Search Updates
Google quietly confirmed the update in a support forum post, explaining that Face Groups is now more integrated with search. If you tap on the search bar, a row of familiar faces will appear in the Ask Photos interface. On the older Search tab, the shortcuts appear toward the top as you open it.
Tap any face, and you jump straight into an auto-updating collection of every shot Google Photos has recognized for that person or pet. You could have always typed in a name to see similar results, but the faster and more compelling one-tap shortcut encourages browsing when you’ve got only a single second.
How to Turn On Face Groups in Google Photos
These shortcuts depend on Face Groups being enabled. To turn it on:
- Open Google Photos, then tap your profile photo.
- Tap Photos settings, then Group similar faces.
- Turn on Face grouping.
- Optional: Name people and pets, merge duplicates, and hide groups you’d rather not see.
If you don’t see the option, check to make sure the app is updated and try again — Google often rolls out updates server-side. Availability by region may vary, and not all users will necessarily begin to see the feature right away as it rolls out.
Why This Update to Google Photos Search Matters
Google Photos, now with trillions of images stored, surpassed more than 1 billion users several years ago, according to company disclosures. At that scale, trimming a few taps from a common task means something: parents looking for the school pictures of a child, pet owners finding the best moments of their dog, anyone hurriedly building an album for sharing.
The shortcuts also pair well with Ask Photos. You can still type out natural-language prompts such as “photos with Mom at the lake,” but the face row enables you to hop right into a person’s or pet’s gallery and then narrow things down by places, dates, or objects — often more quickly than when it comes time to write a question.
Privacy and Control Options for Face Groups Users
Face Groups is a personal choice and can be disabled at any time. Users can edit or remove labels, merge or split face groups, and hide specific faces from appearing in search and memories, according to Google. If you turn off Face Groups, those new shortcuts won’t show up, and groupings generated in the past will not be used.
As always, review your settings if you are worried about how faces are recognized. Google’s support documentation sheds more light on this, including how the company clusters similar-looking faces and what you can do about the data stored in your account.
Rollout and Compatibility Across Android and iOS
The update is rolling out widely on Android and iOS. A few users have noticed signs of this shift in earlier testing, and now it appears to be rolling out more broadly. If you don’t yet see the face row, update Google Photos and try again in the coming days.
How It Stacks Up Against Other Photo Services
Competitors such as Apple Photos offer People and Pets albums, and this move keeps Google competitive while relying on its areas of strength in visual search. With the addition of automatic face grouping, natural-language queries, and now one-tap face shortcuts, Google Photos is one of the fastest ways to pick through huge libraries with minimal effort.
It’s hardly a flashy overhaul, but it’s the kind of thoughtful polish that doesn’t escape people remaining on an operating system. For those who spend a lot of time in Google Photos, finding the right shot of the right person or pet just became easier.