The Apple Photos app uses on-device machine learning to automatically curate your photos and videos into “Memories”—slideshows set to music that highlight past trips, people, or events. While some users enjoy these nostalgic notifications, others find them intrusive, emotionally distressing, or simply annoying when they clutter up the “For You” tab.
If you prefer to manage your photos manually and want to stop your iPhone from automatically generating these highlight reels, you can disable the feature entirely.
How to Turn Off “Show Holiday Events” in Photos
Apple automatically generates memories based on recognized holidays in your region. To turn this off:
- Open the Settings app on your iPhone.
- Scroll down and tap on Photos.
- Scroll down to the “Memories” section.
- Toggle off the switch for Show Holiday Events.
How to Stop Featured Content and Memory Notifications
To completely stop the Photos app from surfacing old photos in widgets and sending you “You have a new memory” notifications, you need to disable Featured Content:
- Open the Settings app.
- Scroll down and tap on Photos.
- Under the “Memories & Featured Photos” section, toggle off the switch for Show Featured Content.
By turning off this setting, your iPhone will no longer automatically feature photos on your Home Screen widgets, nor will it push curated Memories into the “For You” tab in the Photos app.
How to Feature Less of a Specific Person or Place
If you like the Memories feature in general but want to stop seeing photos of a specific person (such as an ex-partner) or a specific location:
- Open the Photos app and go to the For You tab.
- Find a Memory containing the person or place you want to avoid.
- Tap the three-dot menu icon in the top right corner.
- Select Feature Less.
- Choose whether to feature that specific person less, or the entire date/location less.
This allows you to filter out painful or unwanted memories while keeping the automated slideshow feature active for the rest of your photo library.