Your iPhone camera captures far more information than just a photograph. With the Visual Look Up feature, iOS can intelligently analyse the contents of your photos and identify objects, plants, animals, landmarks, food, and more. This powerful feature turns your camera roll into a knowledge tool, allowing you to learn about anything you have photographed without needing to type a single search query.
What Visual Look Up Can Identify
Visual Look Up uses on-device machine learning combined with Apple’s knowledge databases to recognise a wide range of subjects in your photographs:
- Plants and flowers — identify species of flowers, trees, and houseplants.
- Animals and insects — recognise breeds of dogs and cats, species of birds, butterflies, and other wildlife.
- Landmarks and architecture — identify famous buildings, monuments, and tourist attractions.
- Food and dishes — recognise types of cuisine and provide recipe suggestions.
- Art and media — identify paintings, book covers, and album artwork.
- Symbols and signs — recognise laundry care symbols, warning signs, and other common icons.
Apple continues to expand the types of objects that Visual Look Up can identify with each iOS update, so the feature becomes more capable over time.
How to Tell if Visual Look Up Is Available for a Photo
Not every photograph triggers Visual Look Up. The feature only activates when iOS confidently identifies a recognisable subject within the image.
To check whether Visual Look Up is available:
1. Open the Photos app and select a photograph.
2. Tap the Info button (the small “i” icon with a circle around it) at the bottom of the screen.
3. If Visual Look Up has identified something in the photo, the Info button will display small sparkle stars around it, indicating that additional information is available.
4. Alternatively, look for a small icon overlaid on the subject in the photo — such as a leaf icon for plants, a paw icon for animals, or a star icon for landmarks.
How to Use Visual Look Up
1. Open the Photos app on your iPhone.
2. Select a photo containing an identifiable subject (a flower, a dog, a building, etc.).
3. Tap the Info button (the “i” icon with sparkle stars). If you see an icon overlaid on the recognised subject, you can also tap directly on that icon.
4. A panel slides up from the bottom of the screen displaying information about the identified subject, including:
- The name and type of the subject.
- Knowledge from Siri Knowledge and web sources.
- Links to related websites for deeper reading.
- Similar images from the web.
5. Tap on any of the results to learn more.
Lifting Subjects from Photos
Visual Look Up also powers the ability to lift identified subjects out of photographs entirely. This is particularly useful for creating stickers, sharing cutout images, or removing backgrounds:
1. Open a photo containing a clearly defined subject (a person, an animal, an object).
2. Touch and hold the subject in the photograph. After a moment, you will see a glowing outline appear around the subject, and it will visually “lift” away from the background.
3. While still holding the subject, you can:
- Drag it into another app (such as Messages, Notes, or Mail) using split-screen or by switching apps with your other hand.
- Release it to see options including Copy, Share, or Add Sticker.
4. If you select Add Sticker, the cutout is saved as a reusable sticker in your sticker collection, accessible from the emoji keyboard in Messages and other apps.
Using Visual Look Up in Safari and Messages
Visual Look Up is not limited to the Photos app. The feature also works with images you encounter in other apps:
- Safari — touch and hold an image on a webpage, then look for the Look Up option in the context menu.
- Messages — tap on a received photograph, then tap the Info button to check for Visual Look Up results.
- Screenshots — take a screenshot of any image on your screen, open it in Photos, and use Visual Look Up from there.
Requirements and Limitations
Visual Look Up requires an iPhone with an A12 Bionic chip or later (iPhone XS, XR, and all newer models). The feature is available in several countries and languages, though availability may vary by region.
The accuracy of Visual Look Up depends on image quality, lighting, and how clearly the subject is visible. Close-up, well-lit photographs of a single subject produce the most reliable results. Blurry photographs, images with multiple overlapping subjects, or very unusual subjects may not trigger the feature.
Visual Look Up performs much of its processing on-device, so basic identification can work without an internet connection. However, detailed results and web links require an active internet connection to retrieve additional information from Apple’s servers.