Reference · Beta
People
Last updated November 10, 2026
Grain finds faces in your photos on your Mac and groups the ones that look like the same person. Name a group once, confirm the matches Grain suggests, and that person becomes someone you can search for across every drive.
Grain suggests, you decide
People starts without any work from you. As Grain analyzes your photos, it finds faces and groups the ones it thinks belong to one person. Those groups are only suggestions. Nobody has a name until you give one, and no photo joins a person until you approve it.
Unnamed
- Groups of faces Grain has found
- Waiting for a name, or to be ignored
Named
- People you've named
- Searchable by name across every source
- Their gallery holds only approved photos
Suggested Matches
- New photos that may be a named person
- Approved or rejected by you
So the work is small and it compounds. Name the handful of people who matter to your work, review their matches now and then, and each new drive you add brings more suggestions for them.
Name someone once
Open People in the sidebar. Choose an unnamed group, type the person's name and confirm it. That group becomes a named person, with their own gallery.
You only need to name the people you'll look for. Faces in a crowd can stay unnamed, or you can ignore them.
Review suggested matches
Once someone has a name, Review Matches in their gallery shows the Suggested Matches: photos Grain thinks are them but hasn't been told. Select faces and press P to approve them or X to reject them. When everything left is right, Approve All adds the rest.
A face crop isn't always enough. Point at a candidate and it opens out into the whole photograph, so you can judge a profile, a hat or a face half in shadow in context.
Every decision is yours. A lookalike or a face in the background stays out of someone's photos unless you approve it.
Search by a person's name
Type part of a name in the search field and choose the Person suggestion to open their gallery, with photos from every indexed source. From there, narrow it like any gallery: a date range for one session, or a rating for your picks.
Pressing Return on ordinary text still runs a text search. Choose the suggestion when you mean the person. More in search.
Keep your people tidy
Over a big archive, one person can end up split in two, years apart or with and without glasses. Each fix is in the person's menu, and each can be undone.
Merge
- Merge With, or drag one person onto another
- Confirm before it happens
- A named person keeps their name and cover
Rename
- Rename… to correct a name
- Remove Name… to make them unnamed again
- The photos stay either way
Ignore
- Ignore Person hides an unnamed group
- Restore brings it back from Ignored
After a merge, Edit → Undo restores both people as they were. To change how someone looks in People, choose Use as Cover Photo on one of their photos. It changes the picture, not who Grain recognizes.
Shortcuts
| Keys | What they do |
|---|---|
| P | Approve the selected suggested matches |
| X | Reject them |
Every shortcut in Grain is on one page: keyboard shortcuts.
Photos, not video
People works on photographs. In a selection that mixes photos and video, People controls apply to the photos. To find someone in footage, search for their name in what was said, or describe them and search what's on screen. See search footage by what was said.
Privacy
Faces are found and grouped on your Mac. Grain doesn't send your photos anywhere to do it. The names you give people stay in Grain's catalog and aren't written into your files.
Every control, at a glance
- Name a person
- Make people in your photos easy to find again. Assign a name to a face group in People. Named identities are distinct from unnamed suggestions awaiting your review.
- Search by a person’s name
- Go straight to someone’s photographs. Type part of a saved name and choose the Person suggestion to open their gallery. Pressing Return on ordinary text still performs a text search.
- Review suggested matches
- Keep control of who belongs in a person’s gallery. Check the suggested faces you want to approve. Approving the batch confirms checked faces and rejects unchecked candidates for that person.
- See the whole photograph
- Judge a difficult face with more context. Hover over a review candidate to transition from the face crop to the surrounding photograph. Available cached previews can provide context for cloud-backed candidates.
- Merge people
- Bring split groups for the same person together. Choose Merge With, or drag a person onto another. Confirm the merge before it takes effect. A named target keeps its name and cover.
- Undo a merge
- Recover from a mistaken identity decision. Use Edit → Undo after merging to restore the prior people and membership.
- Rename or remove a name
- Correct an identity without losing the photographs. Use Rename or Remove Name from the person’s menu. Removing a name leaves the photos and other people intact; Undo restores the change.
- Ignore and restore unnamed groups
- Keep the People view focused on relevant faces. Ignore an unnamed person group when it is not useful. Restore it from Ignored if you change your mind.
- Choose a person’s cover photo
- Make the People view easier to recognize. Choose “Use as Cover Photo” on a confirmed photo in that person’s gallery, or on a specific face in the inspector. Choosing a cover changes presentation, not recognition training.
- People in photo selections
- Review identities where face information is available. People controls apply to photographs. In mixed photo-and-video selections, they operate on the photo portion.