It doesn’t work recognition people and pets in iPhone Photos

Hello! On my iPhone, the People recognition feature in Photos has completely stopped working.


• iCloud Photos is enabled

• Optimized storage was turned off, and originals were downloaded

• Face recognition works on my Mac, but not on iPhone

• I already tried turning iCloud Photos off and back on, resetting the media library, and even leaving the phone charging and idle overnight

• No “Identifying…” message is shown, and no new faces are recognized, even on new photos


What can I do to fix this? Please help — this used to work before, and now it's completely broken.

iPhone 16, iOS 18

Posted on May 3, 2025 9:44 AM

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8 replies

May 4, 2025 1:25 AM in response to Apple-MacBook-Air-13-M1-2020

I would refrain from turning iCloud on and off, if your Photos Library is large. That will just the Photos library to be uploaded agin to iCloud and merged into the existing library, and thecae recognition and other processes will have to start over again. You will just have to wait many days longer until the detected faces will appear.


On iOS 18 Photos is hiding some of the detected faces, until we add them and does nit even show the tiny faces icon in the info. Have you already looked at the bottom of the People&Pets collection, if there is a the option "Add People" shown at the bottom of the album? See: Find and name people and pets in Photos on iPhone - Apple Support (CA)

If the person or pet you want to name doesn’t appear, tap Add People at the bottom of People & Pets to see more faces.


I am seeing to people to add, when I click there. I wonder where he second face is hiding.



It seems to be intentional, that Photos is now showing less faces to name than before, on the iPhone as well as on the Mac. previously I could also name the faces of artwork, like statues or paintings, but that is no longer possible.


May 3, 2025 1:40 PM in response to Apple-MacBook-Air-13-M1-2020

Do you have at least 10% of your memory free on our phone?


Have you tried a forced restart? 

Force restart iPhone - Apple Support

This is different from a simple Power Off. I had to continue holding the button down past the "slide to power off" message, and then I released the button only after  the Apple Logo appeared indicating a re-start. 

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It doesn’t work recognition people and pets in iPhone Photos

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