In the Google Photos tab photos are sorted by "Date taken, descending".
In the web app on a computer you can use the Page Up and Page Down arrows or drag the scroll bar on the right side of the screen for fast scrolling, and use the up/down arrows or scroll wheel for finer tuning to the correct date.
In the Google Photos app on mobile: when you start scrolling by swiping, a circle with two arrows appears in the right hand upper corner. Tapping on it displays a timeline for fast scrolling to the approximate date (year-month). Swipe up/down for fine tuning.
In the web app on computers there is an "Albums" tab in the main menu, and the 5 albums with most recent activity are shown. It also brings you to "All albums" https://photos.google.com/albums.
In the Google Photos app on mobile devices Albums are found under "Library".
Albums are sorted by default by date of the most recent photo in the album (newest first).
Since 2020 you can sort by:
Most recent photo
Album title
Last modified
This may be the easiest way to find recent or recently modified albums.
New (May 2023) : "More powerfull search" announced. See this link.
New (May 2024): https://support.google.com/photos/thread/274862664/ask-photos-a-new-way-to-search-your-photos-with-gemini
New (September 2024): https://support.google.com/photos/thread/295064551/improved-search-in-google-photos-early-access-to-ask-photos
New (June 2025): https://support.google.com/photos/thread/348529069/you-can-now-search-for-words-within-your-photos :
When you put your search term in quotation marks, you’ll find exact text matches in filenames, camera models, captions (descriptions), or text within photos.
Without quotation marks, the results will include not just text matches but also visual matches.
o O o
In the web app the search bar is shown at the top of the screen (not in albums). Clicking in the search bar also gives direct access to Favourites and People albums.
In the Photos app on mobiles you have to tap on Search at the bottom of the page. You get more categories ("Suggestions") like Screenshots, Video's, Creations. In the web app these are moved to the main menu.
"Recently added" moved to "Collections".
Google Photos indexes a lot of different things in your pictures (see below). It is however NOT possible to search for Tags like for example added in Picasa, or to search with the OR operator.
When you type the first characters of any word in the search bar, Google may suggest search terms, Albums, People or Places. When needed type a second or more words to get more specific results.
Newly added items may not be found immediately: Google needs some time to index.
Official help: Learn more about search in Photos.
Some special characters like - . are ignored or replaced by a space in the index. Examples:
Name-002.JPG found with Name-002.JPG or Name-002 or Name 002 or Name002
IMG_4266.JPG found with IMG_4266.JPG or IMG_4266 or IMG 4266 or IMG4266
A search with WA may find all Whatsapp file names like IMG-20191021-WA000n.jpg (n=0,1,etc)
Did not work in 2023-01, but again (partially) in July 2024.
see https://support.google.com/photos/thread/198193633
Captions added to photos before uploading, and Descriptions added in Google Photos will be searched after some time needed for indexing.
Text in photos may be recognized by OCR and indexed, thus searchable.
When you put your search term in quotation marks, you’ll find exact text matches in filenames, camera models, captions, or text within photos. Without quotation marks, the results will include not just text matches but also visual matches.
See https://support.google.com/photos/thread/348529069/you-can-now-search-for-words-within-your-photos
Type the first characters of any word of an album title. Google will suggest album titles, preceded by an Album icon. When needed type a second or more words. Modified or new titles may not be found immediately.
In the web app max 10 albums will be suggested, and albums shared with you are not searched.
In the Photos app on mobile it suggests ALL albums, including albums shared with you.
In the web app https://photos.google.com (also on mobile) you can try to find a photo. The info field of the photo will show all albums where the photo is added.
Google tries to identify things and places by AI, and may suggest search terms when you start typing. If a place is suggested, it will have a map place marker icon. Surprisingly clicking on the suggested term may give a different result from typing the same term and hitting Enter.
When people albums are tagged as "John Doe" and "Jane Doe", searching with "John Doe" "Jane Doe" should find photos with both (and maybe also others) in the same photo. There may be false hits when one of the names is also used for example in an album title or Description.
Searching for John Doe OR Jane Doe is not supported, but a "Live album" for John Doe & Jane Doe should find all photos where both, or one of them are present. "Live albums" are not available in all regions (not on all accounts in Europe).
In august 2022 we discovered some new search features for people on Android/iOS. See video.
The option "Only them" (in my Dutch version confusingly translated to "Deze personen"/"These persons") shows photos with only these people (= no other recognized faces).
search with red, blue, white, etc.
Use "monochrome" for black & white, and (almost) monochrome images.
as found under "Explore" in the web app or "Search" on mobile can also be used as search term and combined with other search terms.
It is recommended to use names (may be abbreviated as in Photos) for the months to avoid confusion:
2011-01-07 or 01-07-2011 or 07-01-2011 find photos for July 1 and Jan 7 2011.
Examples:
1 jul 2011 (or 1-jul-2011) or jul 1 2011 or july 1 2011 or 2011-july-1 or similar
months: july 2011
Range:
2015 to 2017 or 2015-2017
jun to aug 2016
Jan 26 2019 to April 17 2019 or Jan 26, 2019 to April 17, 2019
before:2015 after:2011
Note or copy the exact name used for the device in the info panel
Copy or Enter the device name in the search bar.
Example: Panasonic DMC-LX100, SONY SLT-A77V, Apple iPhone 5c
Part of the name may also work, for example DMC-LX100, LX100 do work but A77V does not
A search with SONY should find all photos taken with a SONY camera, but APPLE also may find photos with what Google thinks is an apple or when there is an Apple Shop on the map.
For example, a search for: Dave, John, -jane, -samantha will result in finding photos found for Dave and John but only if jane and samantha are not indexed (not in the photo or album title or description etc). That makes it very unreliable: "Dave" will find all photos in an album with title "Dave's birthday party", and a person may be excluded because he/she was on Jane's birthday party.
On April 2 2022 a user signaled that the combination of a date/month/year with another search term finds all photos for that date/month/year. The issue may be solved now.
The default operator is AND. A photo will be found when all search terms are found somewhere (in file name, album title, description etc ...)
You cannot tell the system to search only in file names, album titles etc, but you can search with terms from an album title combined with other search terms to find specific photos in a given album.
You can combine for example Favo(u)rites with other terms, like words from an album title, year etc
People, Places, Things
Note that, when you search with the words used to describe People Things or Places, you probably get different results. Wrong results can be removed in People and Things but (??) not in Places.
People
Google tries to identify and group similar faces. You can add a name to a group. It is recommended to use a unique name, to avoid false hits when searching. For example when a group is called "John" a search with "John" will also find all photos in an album called John's birthday.
On some accounts you can also edit (add or correct) the people tags. On other accounts you can only remove wrong results (select > 3-dots > remove results
Places
Google tries to identify where a photo is taken. On mobile devices you also get a map where you can see where photos are taken. You cannot remove or add photos.
Things
Wrong results can be removed (select > 3-dots > Remove results). Photos cannot be added.
You also find here:
Recently added https://photos.google.com/search/_tra_
Creations https://photos.google.com/search/_m10_Saved%20creations
Animations, collages, movies and more create by you or created by Google and saved by you.
Other categories ... which may be different on web and mobile ...