Visual Look Up: Point Your iPhone at Anything and Find Out What It Is
You snap a photo of a wildflower on a hike and wonder what species it is. Or your friend has a beautiful dog and you can’t quite place the breed. Or you’re staring at a laundry label covered in cryptic symbols. Visual Look Up handles all of this — it’s built right into the Photos app, requires zero setup, and works on photos you took years ago too.
What Is Visual Look Up?
Visual Look Up is Apple’s on-device image recognition system that identifies objects in your photos and provides detailed information about them. It runs on the Neural Engine and uses machine learning models trained on millions of images to recognize plants, animals, insects, birds, landmarks, food, art, and even laundry symbols.
Unlike Google Lens, which requires opening a separate app, Visual Look Up is woven directly into the Photos app. There’s no extra step — the feature simply appears when it detects something it can identify. Apple first introduced it with iOS 15 and has expanded the categories with every major update since.
How to Use Visual Look Up
1
Open a Photo
Open the Photos app and select any image that contains a recognizable subject — a flower, an animal, a building, food on a plate.
2
Look for the Sparkle Icon
At the bottom of the photo, there’s an info button (the “i” in a circle). When Visual Look Up detects something, this button shows small sparkle stars around it. That’s your signal — tap it.
3
Tap the Look Up Result
An info panel slides up showing the identified subject with a Look Up section. Tap it to see a detailed card with the name, description, Wikipedia summary, similar images from the web, and Siri Knowledge results.
Everything Visual Look Up Can Identify
The list of recognized categories has grown substantially since the feature launched. Here’s what it can identify as of iOS 26:
Plants & Flowers
Species, care info, toxicity warnings
Dogs & Breeds
Breed identification, temperament, size
Cats & Breeds
Breed identification, characteristics
Birds
Species, habitat, song info
Insects & Spiders
Species, harmfulness, habitat
Landmarks
Buildings, monuments, natural wonders
Food & Recipes
Dish identification, recipe suggestions
Art & Sculptures
Artwork, artist, museum info
Laundry Symbols
Wash, bleach, dry, iron instructions
Cars
Make, model, year identification
Where Visual Look Up Works
Visual Look Up isn’t limited to just the Photos app. You’ll find it in several places across the system:
Photos app: The primary location. Works on any photo in your library, including old ones.
Camera app: Point your camera at an object, take a photo, and check for the sparkle indicator right away.
Safari: Long-press on an image in a webpage and select “Look Up” from the context menu.
Messages: Tap on a photo someone sent you, then look for the sparkle indicator.
Quick Look: Preview images in Files or Mail attachments — Visual Look Up works there too.
Screenshots: Take a screenshot of a plant in a video call, and Visual Look Up can analyze it.
Visual Look Up vs. Google Lens
The obvious comparison is Google Lens, and both tools have their strengths. Visual Look Up’s biggest advantage is integration — it’s built into the OS, requires no additional app, and works across Photos, Safari, Messages, and Quick Look without any extra steps. It’s also privacy-focused, with initial recognition happening on-device.
Google Lens tends to have a broader recognition range, especially for products, shopping, and text translation. If Visual Look Up can’t identify something, trying Google Lens is a reasonable fallback.
For most everyday use — “what plant is this,” “what breed is that dog,” “what does this laundry symbol mean” — Visual Look Up is accurate, fast, and requires zero friction since it’s already built into the photos you’re looking at.
Tips for Better Results
One clear subject works best. Visual Look Up performs most reliably when there’s a single, well-lit, in-focus subject in the photo. A close-up of a single flower will identify better than a photo of an entire garden.
Try different angles. If the sparkle icon doesn’t appear on one photo, try another shot of the same subject from a different angle or distance. Sometimes a slightly different perspective gives the model enough information to make a match.
Check older photos. Visual Look Up processes your entire photo library, not just new images. That photo of a beautiful tree you took on vacation three years ago? Open it, check for sparkles, and find out what species it is.
Zoom before shooting. For small subjects like insects, flowers, or laundry labels, getting closer and filling more of the frame with the subject dramatically improves recognition accuracy.
Supported Devices
Visual Look Up requires an A12 Bionic chip or later:
iPhone: XS, XR, and all newer models
iPad: iPad (8th gen+), Air (3rd gen+), mini (5th gen+), all M-chip Pro models
Mac: Any Mac with Apple Silicon (M1 and later)
Frequently Asked Questions
Plants, flowers, dog breeds, cat breeds, birds, insects, spiders, landmarks, food, art, sculptures, laundry symbols, and car models. Apple adds new categories with iOS updates.
The info button (i) at the bottom of the photo shows small sparkle stars when Visual Look Up detects a recognizable subject. No sparkles means nothing was identified in that image.
Initial recognition is on-device, but detailed results like descriptions, Wikipedia info, and similar images require an internet connection.
iPhone XS/XR and newer, iPad (8th gen+), Air (3rd gen+), mini (5th gen+), all M-chip iPad Pros, and any Mac with Apple Silicon (M1+). Introduced with iOS 15.