By Ben Schoon
Publication Date: 2025-12-23 13:55:00
Face grouping and search is perhaps one of the best parts of Google Photos, but the pivot to focus more heavily on AI-powered search did take away one of the easy shortcuts that could help you find images of a person or a pet. Now, though, Google is bringing it back.
On a support page, Google has confirmed that recent updates to the Photos app have revived support for “face shortcuts” in search. These shortcuts previously appeared on the search page with images of some of your most common subjects – whether people or pets – getting easy-to-access previews across the page.
When “Ask Photos” initially rolled out, this bar of shortcuts was missing from the search experience. Even as Google has continually made adjustments, this is one feature that was missing compared to the prior search screen. The return applies to both “classic” search as well as “Ask Photos,” with the latter seeing it appear after tapping the text field to start a…