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If the camera roll on your phone is anything like mine, it’s an un-curated mess of 63,000 photos and videos dating back to 2005. Who knows what treasures and horrors await in that mess. But, did you know that you can search for photos of specific things, thus circumventing the need for sorting through the detritus?
The process is easiest on iPhone: just go into the Photos app, tap the magnifying glass on the bottom right, and type what you’re looking for into the search bar.
You don’t need to spend ages scrolling through your old photos to find that one you’re after.Credit:Bloomberg
There are several different ways to get to the same photo, and some might work better than others. Say I’m looking for a picture of a dog wearing tiny shoes that I saw in LA. Searching for “dog” comes back with hundreds of results, so that might not be easy to sort through. “LA” comes up with even more.
But I know that I saw the dog on the same day as I saw someone dressed as a pirate, which I can then find more easily by searching for “pirate”. Once I have that photo, it’s easy to discover the date of the dog photo, search for that date, and then show the dog to someone who would appreciate it (everyone).
On Android things get a little more complicated, because it depends on which app you’re using, on which model phone, with which version of Android.
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On Samsung phones, if you use the Gallery app, just open it up, go to the magnifying glass, and search away. Otherwise Google Photos is an easy alternative, because it has a similar search function to iPhone (though, perhaps more accurate with more options of subject), and is available on practically every device. Also like iPhone, it allows you to tag people and pets with their names for easier searching.
Many Androids come with Google Photos installed, but if your phone doesn’t have it you can download it from the store. The service works best if you’re signed in with your Google account and uploading your photos to cloud storage.
This does of course give Google access to extra information about you that could be used for advertising purposes. Bu it also means that all your photos are backed up to the cloud just in case your phone gets damaged, which is something that doesn’t feel too important until you suffer your first major data loss.