Visual Look Up on iPhone is a neat feature that helps you identify and learn more about different landmarks, statues, art, plants, pets, and more that appear in your personal photos. Great for travel or identifying things like plant life in the neighborhood or a type of dog or cat, Visual Look Up is easy to use. It doesn’t work for every photo, but chances are if you flip through photos you already have in your library, you’ll discover there’s interesting data available with them.

  1. Open the Photos app on your iPhone.
  2. Open a specific photo. If you see the symbol of a tiny star at the top left of the Information “i” icon, it means there is Visual Look Up data for this photo.
  3. Tap the icon to open the results. This will show a Look Up icon if available.
  4. Select this to see Siri Knowledge and learn more about the place, object, statue, or animal.
  5. You can also look at a map of the location for landmarks and statues, and check out similar images that appear online of presumably the same place/landmark/object/animal.
  6. With items like plants, follow steps 2 and 3, and you’ll similarly receive information about what it is. Here, this houseplant has been identified as a Guiana Chestnut or Water Chestnut.

The best place to start if you want to get more familiar with Visual Look Up is to go straight to photos from your most recent vacation or work trip. If there’s a recognizable landmark in a photo, it will likely have the Visual Look Up marking for you to discover more. Alternatively, test the feature by taking a close-up photo of a flower in your backyard or local park, or even one of your furry pet, and see if the phone recognizes what it is.

Visual Look Up works on many of the best iPhones, including the latest models like the iPhone 14, 14 Plus, 14 Pro, and 14 Pro Max. In fact, it works on models dating back to the iPhone SE (2nd Gen and later) and the iPhone XR.

Depending on the image you look up, the wealth of information provided varies. For example, with the Bellagio Hotel & Casino image used above, I’m able to learn more about the venue, when it was established, the location, the country it’s located in, and even the architect. Looking at other photos from New York City, the Statue of Liberty is correctly identified, too, providing a great way to learn more about the landmark and its history and historical significance.

You may find, however, that sometimes, results are incomplete or not entirely accurate. For example, in the image here of the exterior of the Westfield World Trade Center, otherwise known as the Oculus shopping mall, Siri Knowledge identifies it as the National September 11 Memorial and Museum. It is indeed a part of that area in the Big Apple, but the architect of this particular venue is Santiago Calatrava, not the individuals noted in the About information. What’s more, the established date of this specific building is August 2016, not September 11, 2011.

The results can even sometimes be puzzling and humorous. With an image of a bull from a recent trip to the zoo, Visual Look Up incorrectly identified the relaxed animal as a dog. It could be the distance from the camera, the position of the animal, or even the shape and colors. (Oddly, other clearer, more close-up images of animals from the zoo in my library did not contain any Visual Look Up information). Nonetheless, it’s clear this identification is wrong.

In another instance, an image taken of the cityscapes from inside the window of the Empire State Building was incorrectly tagged as being Chicago, Illinois, as the Landmark. The map below, however, does show the proper location of the image as being in New York City.

Thankfully, Apple includes an option to report an issue if results are “incomplete, inaccurate, or otherwise an issue.” Doing so will presumably help the Visual Look Up feature become smarter and more accurate over time.

Bottom line: Visual Look Up is a cool feature, but take the results with a grain of salt if you aren’t sure what the image is depicting. If it’s a recognizable landmark like the Statue of Liberty or the Eiffel Tower, you can, however, confidently read more in the Landmark and Siri Knowledge sections. You can also scan the similar images found in Google to determine accuracy. Otherwise, do more backup research. Nonetheless, it’s a fun way to explore your Photo library and learn more about different places and things you’ve seen over the years and will continue to see in the future.

Note that if you want to change the geolocation of a photo on your iPhone or iPad, one of the simple ways you can determine where a photo was taken, you can do that easily as well.