In Photos, how do I tag someone whose face is not visible?

In Photos, how do I tag someone whose face is not visible? For example, I have a picture of Jamie but she has her back to me. I want the ability to tag that she is in a photo so when I use the Collection by People, I get all photos I’ve noted Jamie is a part of. Tagging should be possible by types of tags so could have one type of free text tags and then tags of type People. Think it could be an easy reference. Let me know if what I asked is possible and if not, I’d like to see tagging introduced into Photos.

MacBook Pro 16″, macOS 15.7

Posted on Jan 2, 2026 4:48 PM

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Question marked as Top-ranking reply

Posted on Jan 3, 2026 1:42 AM

On a Mac you can circle also the back of a head to name a person and add it to the People&Pets album.


While viewing the photo open the Info with ⌘I, then click the "+" in the section "Add face" and circle the head of the person. Type a name into text field below the circle.


This will add the photo to the album of the person, but the custom face will not be used to learn what the person looks like.


You can mark any part of a photo as a face, even toys or statues, anything you want to organize in the People&Pets album.


3 replies
Question marked as Top-ranking reply

Jan 3, 2026 1:42 AM in response to polokagh

On a Mac you can circle also the back of a head to name a person and add it to the People&Pets album.


While viewing the photo open the Info with ⌘I, then click the "+" in the section "Add face" and circle the head of the person. Type a name into text field below the circle.


This will add the photo to the album of the person, but the custom face will not be used to learn what the person looks like.


You can mark any part of a photo as a face, even toys or statues, anything you want to organize in the People&Pets album.


Jan 3, 2026 1:55 AM in response to polokagh

Have you tried to manually add the face:



BTW it is possible to export such face name with the original image as a .xmp sidecar, and then merge .xmp metadata that was edited inside Photos (faces, dates, locations, titles, captions, keywords) to the image's metadata with GraphicConverter or exiftool. Then Photos can import that face as a keyword as well as also other such updated metadata. Photos can't import .xmp sidecars and has many other issues <cough, bug, cough> with .xmp.


[XMP-dc]        Subject                         : Jamie



D'oh! ninja'd by léonie :-)


In Photos, how do I tag someone whose face is not visible?

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