People, places and things
See the people and keywords that came with your imports and where your photos were taken, and open all the photos of one.
Imports bring names and keywords with them. People and Things make them useful: pick one and see every photo it belongs to. Pick Places in the sidebar to see where your photos were taken, as a list and on a map, and to gather all the photos from one trip.
People
Choose People in the sidebar. Each person shows a round cover photo, a name and how many photos they are in.
Where the names come from:
- Google Takeout: the people you named in Google Photos.
- XMP person keywords: the people named inside your files or sidecars.
What you will and won’t see:
- A person with a name and at least one photo on your timeline is listed. Two people with the same name are both listed.
- People who are hidden are not listed.
- Photos that guests sent in are not counted until you accept them in the review inbox. Photos in the trash, archived or hidden are not counted either.
- The cover is the person’s chosen cover photo when it is on your timeline, otherwise their newest photo.
If nobody is listed yet, name people by importing from Google Photos or Apple Photos. Face grouping, included in Nest and plans above it, will also be able to group faces for you.
Things
Choose Things in the sidebar. Things are the keywords and tags on your photos, grouped by kind under headings: Animals, Plants, Objects, Scenes, Events and Keywords. A heading with nothing under it is left out.
Where they come from:
- Keywords from Apple Photos exports appear under Keywords.
- XMP keywords in your files appear there too.
- Tags suggested by smart search appear only after you confirm them. Suggestions you haven’t confirmed are not listed.
- Folders are not things. Find those under Folders.
As with people, only photos on your timeline are counted. If there is nothing yet, you’ll see Nothing found yet.
Open the photos of one person or thing
Click a person or a thing. Your timeline opens with only their photos, grouped by day as usual. A chip at the top says Photos of the person’s name, or Tagged with the thing’s name.
Click Show all photos on the chip to take the filter off and see your whole timeline again. One filter works at a time.
If a person or thing has no photos on your timeline right now, you’ll see Nothing to show here right now. Use Back to all photos to return.
To bring in more names, see Importing.
Where places come from
Places come from the location your camera saves with each photo. Most phones add it when the camera may use GPS (location services). We turn those coordinates into a country, a region and a city. Photos without location data, such as scans, stay on your timeline but don’t appear under Places.
If none of your photos have a location yet, No places yet explains this and links here.
The Places list
The list groups places as country, then region, then city. Each row shows how many photos are there. A country’s count includes every photo in its regions and cities.
- Countries are named in your language. Regions and cities are shown as they are stored.
- The biggest places come first. Places with the same count are sorted by name.
- Some regions have only one city, and the city has the same name. These show as one row, so you don’t see the same name twice.
- A place with no visible photos is hidden. Photos in the trash, archived, hidden, or waiting for review don’t count.
The map
The map shows one pin for each city. Where pins are close together, they join into a cluster that shows the total number of photos. Click a cluster to zoom in. Click a single pin to open that city.
The map can show fewer photos than the list. A photo we could only place in a country, for example one taken far out at sea, counts in the list under that country but has no pin.
The map starts zoomed out to the whole world. At first it zooms in as far as one country, and further when you click a cluster. If the map can’t load, The map can’t load right now appears, and the list keeps working.
Who sees what you look at
The map is drawn from map tiles that load from a third-party tile host (OpenFreeMap by default). That host sees the areas of the map you are viewing, and your internet address. It doesn’t get your photos, their names or their counts. The more you zoom in, the smaller the area it sees. The list never uses the host. Whoever runs the app can point the map at a different tile host.
Open the photos from one place
Click a country, region or city in the list, or a pin on the map. Your timeline opens with only the photos from that place, including everything inside a country or region. Photos are grouped by day, as usual.
A chip at the top names the place. Click its × (Remove filter) to go back to all your photos. If you select all photos while a place is open, only the photos from that place are picked.
If a place has no photos on your timeline right now, you see Nothing to show here. Use Back to all photos to return.
You can also open a place from a photo. See Look at a photo up close.
Credits
Place names come from GeoNames (https://www.geonames.org/), used under the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 licence (CC BY 4.0).
The map uses data from OpenStreetMap contributors and map tiles by OpenMapTiles, and is served by OpenFreeMap. Select Show map credits on the map to see them.