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Google Photos could soon make it easier to find people and pets in albums
Oct 7, 2026 — 10:57 AM ET
- An upcoming version of Google Photos could let users filter images by people and pets inside an individual album.
- Additionally, users could add multiple people and pets to the filters, making it easier to sort through large albums.
- Google Photos currently lets you find all photos of a particular person or pet in your library, but it lacks a similar option inside albums.
The Google Photos app can already group faces of people and pets, and it also lets you add names to each face in the library. However, it can’t filter content by face inside an individual album to show images containing only the specified people. We’re now seeing some early evidence that suggests the app could soon let you do exactly this.
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While dissecting version 7.96.0 of Google Photos, we’ve located a handful of strings that give us a sense of how filtering faces in albums would work. We’re seeing a string that mentions “Filter photos by face,” which could likely appear in the album interface.
<string name="photos_album_ui_action_bar_filter_button_desc">Filter photos by face</string>Next, we’re seeing strings that refer to filtering by people and pets, along with a dedicated filter for unnamed people, marked as “Person.” There’s also an option to clear the filter.
<string name="photos_album_filtering_people_and_pets">People & pets</string>
<string name="photos_album_filtering_unnamed_face">Person</string>
<string name="photos_album_filtering_clear_all">Clear filter</string>More importantly, Google Photos may let users apply multiple filters to show pictures that contain one or more faces of your choosing.
Let’s say you have an album with hundreds of images and want to see images containing only person A, person B, and a couple of your favorite pets. Google Photos could let you do just that, as the string below indicates:
<string name="photos_album_ui_action_bar_filter_button_active_desc">{count, plural, =1{Filter photos by face, # filter applied} other{Filter photos by face, # filters applied}}</string>This filtering option could be particularly helpful when you’ve got a massive album that contains mostly group images. While users can already type a person or pet’s name in the search bar to quickly surface the pictures they’re in, doing so directly within an album could make sorting through group photos a lot easier.
Since we’re only seeing theses code references for the filter, it’s still too early to say what it will look like in action. Similarly, spotting strings doesn’t guarantee it will be implemented later.
However, on a personal note, a feature like this could help me sort out my disorganized collection of albums in Google Photos — if you’re in the same situation, let’s send Google some positive vibes hoping this makes a speedy debut.
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