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Face Recognition ​

Face recognition in Ente helps you find and organize photos by the people in them. All face recognition happens entirely on your device, maintaining your privacy while providing powerful search capabilities.

How Face Recognition Works ​

When you enable face recognition:

  1. Ente detects all faces in your photos
  2. Similar faces are automatically grouped together
  3. You can name these groupings to identify people
  4. Search for specific people by name
  5. Find all photos containing particular persons

All of this happens on your device. Your photos and face data are never sent to Ente's servers.

Enabling Face Recognition ​

Face recognition is part of Ente's machine learning features. You must enable it manually (it's off by default).

On mobile:

Open Settings > General > Advanced > Machine learning, enable Machine learning and/or Local indexing, and wait for indexing to complete.

On desktop:

Open Settings > Preferences > Machine learning, enable Machine learning and/or Local indexing, and monitor indexing progress.

Note: Face recognition is not available on web.ente.io. You must use the mobile or desktop app.

Initial Indexing ​

After enabling face recognition:

  • The app downloads your photos to index them locally
  • Progress is shown as a percentage (e.g., "Indexing... 45%")
  • This is faster over WiFi and on desktop computers
  • Once complete, faces are grouped automatically

Indexing tips:

  • For large libraries, enable on desktop first (faster indexing)
  • Keep the app open during initial indexing
  • Once indexed on one device, the indexes sync to other devices

Learn more about Machine learning.

Using Face Recognition ​

Viewing recognized faces ​

On mobile:

  1. Tap the search icon at the bottom right
  2. Scroll to the People section
  3. Browse all recognized face groupings

On desktop:

  • Access the People section through the search interface

Naming persons ​

Once faces are grouped, you can assign names to identify people:

On mobile:

  1. Open the People section
  2. Tap on a person cluster
  3. Tap Add name or the edit icon
  4. Enter the person's name
  5. The person is now searchable by name

On desktop:

  1. Open a person grouping
  2. Click Add a name
  3. Enter the person's name

After naming, you can search for that person by typing their name in the search bar.

Searching for specific people ​

Once you've named persons:

  • Type the person's name in the search bar
  • All photos containing that person will appear
  • Works across all your albums
  • Search is instant and happens on your device

Managing Face Groupings ​

Merging persons ​

If the same person is split into multiple groupings, you can merge them by assigning the same name.

On mobile:

  1. Make sure one grouping has a name assigned
  2. Open the second grouping
  3. Tap the Add a name banner
  4. Instead of typing, tap the existing name from the list
  5. The two groupings are now merged

On desktop:

  • Similarly, use the Add a name button
  • Select an existing person from the list to merge

De-merging persons ​

If incorrectly grouped faces were merged, you can undo the merge.

On mobile:

  1. Open the person
  2. Tap Review suggestions
  3. Tap the History icon (top right)
  4. Tap the minus icon beside the group you want to de-merge

On desktop:

  1. Open the person
  2. Click Review suggestions
  3. Click the history icon (top right)
  4. Undo previous merges if necessary

Removing incorrect faces from a person ​

Sometimes the wrong face gets grouped with a person. You can remove incorrect faces:

On mobile:

  1. Open the person from the People section
  2. Tap the three dots (overflow menu)
  3. Select Edit
  4. Long-press on photos with incorrect faces
  5. Select the photos to remove
  6. Tap Remove from the action bar

On desktop:

  • Currently, editing face groupings is only supported on mobile
  • Desktop can view and name persons, but not modify groupings

Changing the cover photo for a person ​

On mobile:

  1. Open the person grouping
  2. Long-press the image you want as the cover
  3. Tap Use as cover

On desktop:

  • Desktop currently doesn't support picking a cover
  • It defaults to the most recent image

Ignoring certain persons ​

You can tell the app not to show certain face groupings.

On mobile:

  1. Make sure the person is not named (if named, tap Remove person label first)
  2. Inside the unnamed grouping, tap Ignore person from the top right menu

To undo:

  1. Open a photo containing the ignored person
  2. Open file info
  3. Tap the face thumbnail of the ignored person
  4. Tap Show person

On desktop:

  • Use the Ignore option from the top right menu
  • To undo, open that person via file info and select Show person

Special Cases ​

Photos of babies and toddlers ​

Face recognition models (including Ente's) struggle with pictures of babies and young children. Faces change rapidly at that age, making grouping difficult.

If you find a mixed grouping with several different babies:

On mobile:

  1. Open the mixed grouping
  2. Tap the mixed grouping option in the top right menu
  3. The model will re-evaluate with stricter settings
  4. This should separate different babies into different groupings

Note: This functionality is currently only available on mobile.

Platform Differences ​

Mobile apps (iOS and Android) ​

  • ✅ View recognized faces
  • ✅ Name persons
  • ✅ Merge and de-merge persons
  • ✅ Remove incorrect faces
  • ✅ Change cover photos
  • ✅ Ignore persons
  • ✅ Handle mixed groupings

Desktop apps (Mac, Windows, Linux) ​

  • ✅ View recognized faces
  • ✅ Name persons
  • ✅ Merge persons (by assigning same name)
  • ❌ Cannot modify face groupings (edit, remove faces)
  • ❌ Cannot change cover photos
  • ✅ Can ignore persons

Current limitation: Face grouping management (editing clusters, removing incorrect faces) must be done on the mobile app. Desktop apps can view and name persons but cannot modify the groupings themselves.

Web (web.ente.io) ​

  • ❌ Face recognition not available
  • Must use mobile or desktop apps

Privacy and Security ​

Face recognition in Ente maintains complete privacy:

  • On-device processing: All face detection and grouping happens on your device
  • Encrypted face data: Face recognition data is encrypted before syncing
  • No server access: Ente's servers never see your photos or face data
  • Not used for training: Your photos are never used to train AI models
  • No third parties: No data is shared with any third party services

Your face recognition data is as private and secure as your photos themselves.

Learn more in Security and Privacy FAQ.

Works Offline ​

Once your photos have been indexed, face recognition works completely offline:

  • Search for people without internet
  • View face groupings offline
  • Name and manage persons offline
  • All operations happen locally on your device

The initial indexing requires downloading your photos (which is faster over WiFi), but after that face recognition works without an internet connection.