Searching for “beach” or “dog”
Find a photograph by describing what is in it, even when you have no idea when it was taken.
Quietly, usually overnight while it is on charge, your phone goes through your photographs and works out what is in them. Nobody asked it to and nobody was told. It is the most useful thing on the phone that people do not know about.
Key points
- Find a photograph by typing what is in it, with no idea of the date
- Search for words printed inside a picture — receipts, signs, labels
- Give a face a name, and find every picture of that person by it
- Recognize the limit: the phone knows what is in a picture, not what it meant
What to remember
- Describe what is in the picture. The phone has already made the list.
- If you can point at it in the photograph, the search box can probably find it. If it lives in your head, it cannot.
- Naming four or five faces is the best twenty minutes anybody spends in the Photos app.
Try this
Open Photos, press Search, and type cake. Then try snow. Almost everybody finds something they had entirely forgotten they had.
Practice: Searching for “beach” or “dog”. Your first lesson is free, with no account or card; the rest are part of a Lantern plan. Interactive lessons require JavaScript.