View photos in the Photos app on iPhone

Use the Photos app to find and view all of the photos and videos on your iPhone.

How photos and videos are organized in Photos

You navigate Photos using the Library, For You, Albums, and Search buttons at the bottom of the screen.

The photo library displayed in Days view. A selection of photo thumbnails fills the screen. In the top left of the screen are the date and location where the photos were taken. In the top right are the Select and More Options buttons to share photos and see details. Below the thumbnails are options to view the photo library by Years, Months, Days, and All Photos. Along the bottom are the Library, For You, Albums, and Search buttons.

Library: Browse your photos and videos organized by days, months, years, and all photos.
For You: View your memories, shared photos, featured photos, and sharing suggestions in a personalized feed; see Watch memories in Photos and Share photos with Sharing Suggestions.
Albums: View albums you created or shared, and your photos organized automatically by categories—for example, People & Places and Media Types; see Organize photos in albums.
Search: Type in the search field to search for photos by date, location, caption, or objects they contain. Or browse photos already grouped by important events, people, places, and categories; see Search for photos.

Browse photos in your library

To browse your photos and videos by when they were taken, tap Library, then select any of the following:

Years: Quickly locate a specific year in your photo library.
Months: View collections of photos that you took throughout a month, organized by significant events—like a family outing, social occasion, birthday party, or trip.
Days: View your best photos in chronological order, grouped by the time or place the photos were taken.
All Photos: View all of your photos and videos.

Tip: When viewing All Photos, pinch the screen to zoom in or out. You can also tap to zoom in or out, view photos by aspect ratio or square, filter photos, or see photos on a map.

Years, Months, and Days views are curated to show your best shots, and visual clutter like similar photos, screenshots, whiteboards, and receipts aren’t shown. To see every photo and video, tap All Photos.

View individual photos

Tap a photo to view it in full screen on your iPhone.

Double-tap or pinch out to zoom in on the photo—drag to see other parts of the photo; double-tap or pinch closed to zoom back out.

Tap to add the photo to your Favorites album. See Use albums in Photos.

Tip: When viewing a Live Photo , touch and hold the photo to play it.

A photo with thumbnails of other photos across the bottom of the screen. At the top left is a back button, which takes you back to the view in which you were browsing. Along the bottom are the Share, Like, and Delete buttons. In the top right is the Edit button.

Tap or drag the photo down to continue browsing or return to the search results.

See photo and video information

To see saved metadata information about a photo or video, open it, then tap or swipe up. Depending on the photo or video, you see the following details:

People identified in the photo
A caption field to describe the photo or video, and make it easier to find in Search
Items detected by Visual Lookup
Whether the photo was shared with you in Messages, another app, or iCloud Shared Photo Library
The date and time the photo or video was taken; tap Adjust to edit the date and time
Camera metadata such as lens, shutter speed, file size, and more
Where the photo or video was taken; tap the link to view the location in Maps; tap Adjust to edit the location

Helpful?

iPhone User Guide

View photos in the Photos app on iPhone

How photos and videos are organized in Photos

Browse photos in your library

View individual photos

See photo and video information