How to Tag People in Photos on macOS 13

The Photos app in macOS 13 (Ventura) uses on-device machine learning to scan your photo library and automatically group photos of the same individuals together. This guide explains how to identify and assign names to recognized faces, manually tag faces that the system missed, and merge duplicate profiles to keep your People album organized.

Name Detected Faces in the People Album

  1. Open the Photos app on your Mac.
  2. In the left sidebar, click People.
  3. Locate an unnamed person who appears with a circular profile preview.
  4. Click Add Name below the face, or double-click the photo and click Add Name at the top.
  5. Type the person's name. As you type, suggestions from your Contacts app will appear; select the matching contact or finish typing the name manually.
  6. Press Return to confirm.

Tag Faces Directly from an Individual Photo

If you are viewing a specific image and want to identify a face:

  1. Double-click the photo to open it.
  2. Click the Info button (the circle with an "i") in the toolbar, or press Command + I.
  3. Hover over the detected faces shown at the bottom of the Info window. A circle will highlight the corresponding person in the photo.
  4. Click the face that displays a question mark or placeholder label.
  5. Enter the person’s name in the text field and press Return.

Manually Add an Unrecognized Face

If Photos fails to detect a face in an image automatically, you can add it manually:

  1. Open the photo and click the Info button.
  2. Click the + (Add) button next to the People section in the Info window. A circular selector will appear on the image.
  3. Drag the circle over the person's face and use the handles to resize it so it fits their face properly.
  4. In the Info window, enter the person’s name in the Name field.
  5. Press Return.

Merge Duplicate People

If the same person appears multiple times under different entries in your People album:

  1. In the sidebar, click People.
  2. Select the duplicate entries (hold Command while clicking each profile).
  3. Right-click (or Control-click) one of the selected profiles.
  4. Choose Merge [Number] People from the contextual menu.
  5. Confirm by clicking Merge. Photos will combine all assigned photos into a single profile.