How to Prevent Someone From Appearing in Your IPhone’s Memories Photo

When you open the Photos app on your iPhone, you have access to your library, your albums, and a really great search feature that lets you filter images by text or even description. You also see Memories, collections that the app automatically creates of images that fit a specific theme and are offered to you daily.

Right now, my “Memories” include a collage of photos of my mom “throughout the years,” a trip I took to Washington DC last year, and a collection of various snapshots from various beach days. They’re harmless enough, but they’ll change after a few hours and could include anything my phone decides I’d be interested in seeing, depending on the location, date it was taken, or the person pictured.

Yes, AI has come a long way, but not far enough to sense when you don’t want to see someone’s face anymore. Your phone won’t know if someone died or you ended a friendship, and it won’t know if you find viewing these images traumatic, distracting, or anything else. That’s why it’s useful to know that you can prevent the app from showing you specific people in the memories you suggest. Here’s how.

Stop your iPhone from showing you a specific person in Memories

In the iPhone’s native Photos app, the process for hiding one of your memories is different than what you need to do if you ‘re trying to hide it in Google Photos . To hide them on iPhone, you need to first find a photo of the person in your camera roll.

Once the photo opens, swipe up to reveal the image’s metadata. Depending on the settings of the phone the original image was taken on, it may show you the date it was taken, what phone was used, where it was taken, and/or what app it was saved from. If you look at the bottom left of the image, you will see small circles representing each of the people in the image. Click on the circle with the person you want to hide to open the menu. If you don’t already have photos of the person associated with their contact card on your phone, you’ll be prompted to assign a name to them. The other two options are to view all the photos you have of them or, most importantly, “Fewer features…”.

Clicking on “Show less…” gives you two more options: “Show this person less” means individual photos of them won’t be included in Memories, but you can still get multiple photos of them in the group settings. “Never show this person” will prevent even group photos of this person from being included in your suggested memories.

How to Unblock Someone in iPhone Photo Memories

Also, unlike Google Photos, the process you use to unlock anyone from your auto-generated memories is a little more complicated. Go to your phone’s settings and find “Photos”. Scroll until you find “Reset People Suggestions.” When you tap it, the phone will display a message: “Resetting will allow people who were offered less to be fully included again in new memories and favorite photos.”

This means that if you want to free someone from iPhone photo memory purgatory—say, if you’re getting back together with an ex, or have healed enough after losing someone that seeing their face out of nowhere won’t send you into a spiral—you’ll have to free everyone , then go back and hide the people you’re not ready to see again. It’s unpleasant, but it’s inevitable.

If you want to hide certain places or dates, you may also have to wait until the memory of those places or dates is created. From there, tap the three dots in the top right corner of the photo stack and tap Fewer Features again. You’ll be able to choose whether you want to display less of the day, place, or person, but you won’t be able to access these options until you have the memory to do so. This can also be reset in settings, just like resetting hidden people.