Photos not saving to people albums?

Ever since the ios 15 update last year, my iphone 12 pro has not been able to save certain photos to the people album even if there is a clear face in the image; it is usually only for the same person too. It has gotten quite annoying as I have almost 20k photos and it’s hard to go through them to find a specific image.


There has also been photos that were saved in people albums prior to the update but since have been removed from these albums.

Around half the images from a people album have been removed and saved to a separate ‘unknown’ people album without a name and when I try to add these images back into the correct album, it is reversed when I close the photos app.


I’ve found that these issues have mostly occurred with the people albums that contain a larger amount of photos than the other albums.


I thought maybe this would be fixed with subsequent updates but it still has not.

Any ideas on how I can fix this issue? Thanks.

iPhone 12 Pro

Posted on Jun 29, 2022 09:22 PM

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Question marked as Top-ranking reply

Posted on Jun 29, 2022 09:39 PM

I am not aware of any way to get it to automatically put people into specific names automatically like other than training the device to do it if it isn't already doing it. Here are a few ways you can do this:


Put a name to a face

Photos suggests names from your Contacts, but you can manually add a name to someone that's already in your People album: Here's how:

  1. Open the People album, then tap the thumbnail of the person that you want to name.
  2. Tap Add Name at the top of the screen.
  3. Type the person's name or select their name if it shows up.
  4. Tap Next, then tap Done.



Also what may help it is if you have multiples of the same person but your device is identifying them as someone separate. In this case, you would need to merge those People:


  1. Go to the People album and tap Select.
  2. Select the people that you want to merge.
  3. Tap Merge near the bottom of the screen.
  4. Tap Yes to confirm the merge.


You can find more information on the subject here:

Use the People album in Photos on your iPhone, iPad, or iPod touch - Apple Support



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2 replies
Question marked as Top-ranking reply

Jun 29, 2022 09:39 PM in response to koifish66

I am not aware of any way to get it to automatically put people into specific names automatically like other than training the device to do it if it isn't already doing it. Here are a few ways you can do this:


Put a name to a face

Photos suggests names from your Contacts, but you can manually add a name to someone that's already in your People album: Here's how:

  1. Open the People album, then tap the thumbnail of the person that you want to name.
  2. Tap Add Name at the top of the screen.
  3. Type the person's name or select their name if it shows up.
  4. Tap Next, then tap Done.



Also what may help it is if you have multiples of the same person but your device is identifying them as someone separate. In this case, you would need to merge those People:


  1. Go to the People album and tap Select.
  2. Select the people that you want to merge.
  3. Tap Merge near the bottom of the screen.
  4. Tap Yes to confirm the merge.


You can find more information on the subject here:

Use the People album in Photos on your iPhone, iPad, or iPod touch - Apple Support



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Photos not saving to people albums?

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