Anyone with a large photo library on their iPhone can tell you that finding the right image often feels like an uphill battle.
If you’ve only got a few hundred photos on your device, things aren’t so difficult. But once you expand that up to a few thousand or more, locating the right picture is always a long and frustrating process.
Thankfully, the “Photos” app built into your iPhone comes with a feature that allows you to find pictures using any photo captions that you’ve previously assigned to your image.
At that point, finding photos isn’t just easy – it’s practically effortless.
Here’s how you can start using the “Photo Caption Search” feature on your own iPhone right away.
1. Open the “Photos” app on your iPhone.

2. Tap the “Search” icon in the lower right corner of the screen.

3. Tap once inside the “Search” field and enter the photo caption that you’re looking for. Note that you can enter the entire caption, or you can just enter a few characters and select the most relevant “Suggested Caption” that appears.

4. Scroll through the much smaller list of photos that contain that caption until you find the one you’re looking for.

That’s it!
Note that your iPhone also uses artificial intelligence and machine learning to suggest captions of its own.
So even if you haven’t necessarily manually added captions, this is still a great way to find the photo you’re looking for.
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OMG – Thank you.
How do you add captions so it’s easy to search?
Wish Pete would answer that question
You pull up on the photo and a line appears “Caption”. However, when I tried it, then searched for the words in my caption, it didn’t find the picture I’d just captioned. Why?
I was having problems with this as well with my IPhone 12. You have to swip up actually from the left corner and it will come up. It’s like closing out your apps that are still running.
That’s what I would like to know! I was unsuccessful trying to caption a new photo.
I covered how to add captions in a separate lesson… https://post.youcanlearnthis.com/how-to-add-photo-captions
Hope that helps! 🙂
Can you give instructions for adding captions to pictures?
Did you get a reply from Pete?
Do you have to caption every picture or does it bring up all the pictures in that topic?
How clever ,thank you
How do I add Photo captions!
I never knew that you can caption your photos without saving them to a file! How does one caption a photo that was just taken?
Yes! I would LOVE to caption my photos. Especially if they are memes or something not easily captioned by subject matter, like graphs, or drawings or complex photos.
To add a caption, swipe up on the photo. An input box will appear below the photo.
Thanks! I have wondered how to add a caption to a photo. Your suggestion worked like a charm!
I’ve had iPhones for many years and always captioned my important ones. I now have an iPhone 11 and cannot caption photos any longer??
Any suggestions?
Or did they simply eliminate this feature?
To add a caption, swipe up on the photo. An input box will appear below the photo.
Ditto! I want to know how to add and save caption on my XR!
This should be great!
How do you caption? I would love to know how.
Please instructions for adding captions.
Thanks. I have learned so much.
How would one manually add a caption to a photo?
That is fantastic. Having a lot of photos seems like an endless task to page thru so many to find the one you want. Thank you big time saver
Please make your next post about how to add a caption to a photo.
I was surprised when I saw this on my photos…..LOVE it!
I am one of those people who have over 9000 photos on my phone!!!
Thank you!
How do you caption photos, new and existing? Thanks!
Thank you so much…this will make it much easier and quicker!
How do you add captions to existing photos?
How do you caption your photos ?
Is there a way to eliminate duplicate photos?