How to Find Photos of Yourself and Your Family on Your PC

Every photo of the people who matter — found on your own PC, privately.

Quick answer: File Explorer can show and search names that are already saved in your photos. To find photos of people who aren't named yet, turn on People+ in Productivity Plus Pack: it recognizes faces on your own PC, lets you name each person, and writes the names into the photos, so searching File Explorer for a name finds them.

Years of photos spread across folders, and you want the ones with you in them — or your mom, or your best friend. Scrolling through them all isn't realistic.

People+ from Productivity Plus Pack recognizes faces with AI that runs entirely on your PC, lets you name each person, and writes the names into your photos so you can search for them in File Explorer.

Step by step

  1. Turn on People+. Open Settings, select People+, review the consent information and turn on people recognition.
  2. Choose your photo folders. Pick the photo-library locations to scan. Recognition runs only there, and can wait until your PC is idle.
  3. Name the people. Review the groups of similar faces, confirm or correct them, and name each person — starting with yourself.
  4. Find the photos. Search File Explorer for a person's name, or build a Person filter in Settings > Navigation+ > Search filters — for example, to find photos of that person rated 4 stars or more.

Ways to do it

Use what's built into Windows, the tools you already have, or Productivity Plus Pack — they work well together.

Built into Windows

File Explorer's People column shows names already saved inside your photos.

With your other photo apps

People+ can import names that Windows Photos, Picasa or Lightroom already saved in your photos, and use them to recognize the same people elsewhere.

With Productivity Plus Pack

People+ finds and names faces privately on your PC, and Tag+ and Rate+ let you combine people with tags and ratings.

Frequently Asked Questions

More about People+ · Full People+ guide · Read: How to Automatically Tag Files Using AI · Read: How to Organize Photos on Your PC · More how-to guides

Are my photos uploaded anywhere?

No. Face detection, matching and grouping run locally on your PC. Your photos and face data are not uploaded to a recognition service.

What if it gets someone wrong?

Confirm, reject or reassign any face at any time. Lower-confidence matches are left for you to review rather than assigned automatically.

Can I delete what it has learned?

Yes. Forget one person or delete all locally stored face data from the People+ page.

Put it to work

Use this idea in a real-world workflow.

Family photos

Name family members, tag occasions and rate favorites so you can find the best photos of a person across different events and years.

Explore all workflows →

Try it free with Productivity Plus Pack

Free 30-day trial, no account or credit card needed. Then one payment for every feature — no subscription.