Find a Photo finds a photo from a description. Tell it who, what, when or where, by voice or by typing, and it shows the photos on your iPhone or iPad that match. To make that possible, the app uploads a smaller copy of your photos to our secure and private server, where they’re analyzed automatically. You don’t need a KeepSafe subscription to use it.
Turn on Find a Photo
- Open the Tools tab and tap Find a Photo. The Tools tab needs your drive connected; Find a Photo in the Settings tab works without it.
- The first time, the app asks for your consent to upload your photos for analysis. Tap Allow:
If you tap Don’t Allow, Find a Photo stays off.
You can also turn it on ahead of time: on the Home screen, tap Show Backup Options and switch on Photo Search Tools:
On an iPhone or iPad, Find a Photo needs iOS 15 or later. On an older version, the app says iOS update required.
What gets uploaded
- A smaller copy of each photo in your library, not your videos. Each copy keeps the photo’s date and location, which is what lets you search by when and where.
- Uploads run over Wi-Fi, separately from your drive backups: when you open the app, and in the background.
- Only you can access your photos, and you can ask us to delete them at any time.
- If you don’t open Find a Photo for a couple of days, the analysis pauses. It picks up again the next time you open it.
Find a Photo has an online storage quota. Once it’s full, the app says New photos can’t be analyzed because your online storage quota for “Find a Photo” has been exceeded. You can still search the photos analyzed before then.
Search for a photo
Tap the microphone button and say what you’re looking for: a person, a place, a thing or a time, or any mix of them. Or type it in the Search your photos... box.
The first time you use the microphone, allow speech recognition and microphone access when asked.
While new photos are being analyzed, the screen says Checking your library for any new photos to analyze... or Analyzing followed by how many photos are left. New photos show up in your searches once they’ve been analyzed.
Turn off Find a Photo
On the Home screen, tap Show Backup Options and switch off Photo Search Tools. New photos stop uploading. Opening Find a Photo again turns it back on. Turning it off doesn’t delete the copies already uploaded; to have them deleted, contact Ultimate Backup support.
If you need any additional assistance, please contact Ultimate Backup support.