The field, at a glance
Prices are from the US App Store or the vendor’s own pricing page, read on October 30, 2026. “Vendor claim” means the developer says so and we have not tested it.
| App | Price model (US) | Where processing happens |
|---|---|---|
| Apple Photos | Free, built into iOS | On the device for scene and people analysis; description search needs Apple Intelligence |
| Google Photos | Free with 15 GB; Google One from $1.99 (period not stated) | Searches photos backed up to Google |
| Microsoft OneDrive | Free tier; Microsoft 365 from $1.99 (App Store listing, Oct 2026) | Cloud; description search announced October 2026, rolling out |
| Ente Photos | Free (10 GB, or no account); storage from $2.49/month | On the device |
| Immich | Free, open source; optional $25 / $100 key | On your own server |
| Queryable (ours) | $4.99 once, no in-app purchases | On the device; no network requests |
| Photo Search - AI Find Image | $4.99 once, no in-app purchases | On the device (vendor claim) |
| PicQuery-AI Photo Search | Free; $6.99 to remove ads | On the device (vendor claim) |
| AI Photo Search: Nab | Free; image packs $4.99–$29.99 | Not stated |
| Photos Search AI Video Gallery | Free; Pro $7.99–$49.99 | On the device (vendor claim) |
| Glimpse: Offline Photo Search | Free; $4.99/month or $39.99 lifetime | On the device (vendor claim) |
| RecallPic | Free, no in-app purchases | On the device (vendor claim) |
| PicSeek: AI Photo Search | Search free; Pro $5.99/month to $29.99 lifetime | On the device (vendor claim) |
| PicSeek: Photo Search | Yearly, $11.99–$29.99 by library size | On the device (vendor claim) |
| SuperCurate Photos | Free; Pro $9.99 | On the device (vendor claim) |
| AI Photo Search (超 樊) | Free, no in-app purchases | On the device (vendor claim) |
| PixFind - AI Photo Finder | Free, no in-app purchases listed | On the device (vendor claim) |
| AI Photo Finder (Imago) | Free; Pro $9.99 | Not stated precisely |
| Stream - Manage & Find Photos | $1.99/month, $14.99/year, $39.99 lifetime | On the device (vendor claim) |
| Image Search Engine FindMySnap | $2.99/month, $19.99/year, $59.99 lifetime | Not stated |
Built in, and the big cloud libraries
Start here. If one of these already holds your photos, you may not need another app.
Apple Photos
- Price (US)
- Free, part of iOS.
- Processing
- On-device analysis for scenes, people and pets; Enhanced Visual Search matches places against an Apple server index and can be switched off. Apple does not publish where the Apple Intelligence description search runs.
- Best for
- Anyone with an iPhone 15 Pro, 15 Pro Max, iPhone 16 or later, or iPhone Air — description search needs Apple Intelligence. It also searches text in photos and people you have named.
Apple’s own example query is “Maya skateboarding in a tie-dye shirt.” Without Apple Intelligence, Photos still searches dates, places, categories, events, named people and pets, and text. The full comparison is Queryable vs Apple Photos search.
Google Photos
- Price (US)
- Free app with 15 GB shared across Google services; Google One storage from $1.99 for 100 GB on iOS; the listing does not state the billing period.
- Processing
- Search covers photos backed up to Google; Google says new photos may take 3–5 days to become searchable. Ask Photos adds conversational Gemini search in selected regions.
- Best for
- Libraries already backed up to Google. It also finds text in photos and faces you label, and works across devices.
- Source
- Google Photos help, App Store
See Queryable vs Google Photos for what changes when the photos never leave the phone.
Microsoft OneDrive
- Price (US)
- Free tier; Microsoft 365 from $1.99 (App Store listing, Oct 2026); the listing does not state the billing period.
- Processing
- Cloud. In October 2026 Microsoft announced natural-language photo search and Copilot in OneDrive photos, with some features “rolling out over the coming months”.
- Best for
- People already paying for Microsoft 365 storage. The app requires iOS 26.
- Source
- OneDrive blog, October 2026, App Store
Amazon Photos
- Price (US)
- 5 GB free; unlimited photo storage with Prime in the US; iOS storage plans from $0.99 a month.
- Processing
- Cloud: photos are uploaded to Amazon to be stored and searched.
- Best for
- Prime members who want free photo backup. Its listing names search by date and location; we found no documented description search, so it is here for completeness.
- Source
- App Store
Private, open source, or self-hosted
These answer the “without uploading to Google” version of the question. Two of them need a server; one does not.
Ente Photos
- Price (US)
- Free: 10 GB with an account, or no account at all in gallery mode. Paid storage from $2.49 a month (50 GB) on Ente’s site.
- Processing
- On the device. Ente says Magic Search is based on Apple’s MobileCLIP (v1); indexes are stored locally and, for signed-in users, encrypted and synced.
- Best for
- Free, private description search with end-to-end encrypted backup, face grouping and apps on Android, web and desktop. Open source (AGPL).
This is the closest thing to Queryable on the list, and it is free. Since March 13, 2026 it works without an account. The honest differences are on Queryable vs Ente Photos.
Immich
- Price (US)
- Free, open source (AGPL). You run the server. An optional lifetime product key costs $25 per person or $100 per server.
- Processing
- On your own server’s machine-learning service; the iOS app is a client that logs in to it.
- Best for
- People who already run a home server and want a Google Photos replacement with CLIP search, OCR, faces and backup.
- Source
- Immich search docs, product keys, App Store
See Queryable vs Immich.
PhotoPrism
- Price (US)
- Free Community edition (AGPL); Essentials €2.00 a month, Plus from €6.00 a month.
- Processing
- On your server, or a managed host; captions and labels can call Ollama or OpenAI.
- Best for
- Self-hosters who want a web photo archive. There is no native iOS app from the vendor, and its editions page does not confirm free-text semantic search.
- Source
- PhotoPrism editions
Smaller App Store apps that search the photo library
These work on the Apple Photos library already on your phone. Most say they process on the device; we list what each developer says and mark what we could not confirm. Several have only a handful of ratings, so treat quality as unknown until you try them.
Queryable — ours
- Price (US)
- $4.99 once, no in-app purchases, no trial.
- Processing
- On the device with Apple’s MobileCLIP-S2 through Core ML; the app makes no network requests of its own.
- Best for
- Description and sample-photo search of the Apple Photos library on any iPhone with iOS 18, without Apple Intelligence, plus a three-tier similar photo cleaner.
- Source
- App Store, source code
The honest limits, in the same breath: no text-in-photo search, no face recognition, manual indexing, and photos stored only in iCloud must be downloaded before indexing. Its search model is English, with on-device translation for other languages. More on search photos by description.
Photo Search - AI Find Image
- Price (US)
- $4.99 once, no in-app purchases — the same price model as Queryable.
- Processing
- On the device; the vendor says nothing is uploaded.
- Best for
- English-only offline description search, search by image and similar-image search. 24 US ratings; last updated June 2026.
- Source
- App Store
PicQuery-AI Photo Search
- Price (US)
- Free; a one-time $6.99 purchase removes ads.
- Processing
- On the device, no account (vendor claim).
- Best for
- Description search that also picks out receipts, IDs, documents and screenshots. We could not confirm any link to the Android app PicQuery, which credits Queryable; the sellers differ.
- Source
- App Store
AI Photo Search: Nab
- Price (US)
- Free; image-count packs at $4.99 (5,000), $14.99 (20,000) and $29.99 (50,000).
- Processing
- The vendor says it never stores data in the cloud but does not say whether analysis happens on the device.
- Best for
- Trying description search on a small library. Last updated December 2024.
- Source
- App Store
Photos Search AI Video Gallery
- Price (US)
- Free download; “Photos AI Pro” at five price points from $7.99 to $49.99, periods not stated.
- Processing
- On the device (vendor claim).
- Best for
- Description search with visual matching and clean-up. It has had a single release, in March 2024.
- Source
- App Store
Glimpse: Offline Photo Search
- Price (US)
- Free download; $4.99 a month or $39.99 lifetime.
- Processing
- On the device; the vendor says it works in Airplane Mode.
- Best for
- Offline description search combined with text-in-photo (OCR) search. Released October 2026, no ratings yet.
- Source
- App Store
RecallPic: AI Photo Search
- Price (US)
- Free, no in-app purchases.
- Processing
- On the device (vendor claim), using a SigLIP2 model with on-device translation of queries.
- Best for
- Free multilingual description search on iOS 26 or later. No ratings yet.
- Source
- App Store
PicSeek: AI Photo Search
- Price (US)
- Search is free; Pro, needed to delete or share, is $5.99 a month, $35.99 a year or $29.99 lifetime.
- Processing
- On the device (vendor claim).
- Best for
- Free description search with search by image, duplicates and screenshot notes.
- Source
- App Store
PicSeek: Photo Search
- Price (US)
- Yearly plans by library size: $11.99 (20,000 photos), $19.99 (50,000), $29.99 (100,000).
- Processing
- On the device; originals not uploaded (vendor claim).
- Best for
- Everyday-language search that mixes visual content, dates, places and text in images. A different developer from the PicSeek above; released October 2026.
- Source
- App Store
SuperCurate Photos
- Price (US)
- Free; “SuperCurate Photos Pro” $9.99, period not stated.
- Processing
- On the device (vendor claim).
- Best for
- Private description search with ranked results and collections. Its subtitle is literally “Search photos by description”.
- Source
- App Store
AI Photo Search (超 樊)
- Price (US)
- Free, no in-app purchases.
- Processing
- On the device (vendor claim).
- Best for
- Free text-to-image search, similar-photo search with cropping and adjustable similarity, and duplicate detection.
- Source
- App Store
PixFind - AI Photo Finder
- Price (US)
- Free, no in-app purchases listed.
- Processing
- On the device (vendor claim).
- Best for
- Free text-to-photo and image-to-image search with people grouping, OCR and tags.
- Source
- App Store
AI Photo Finder (Imago)
- Price (US)
- Free; “Imago Pro” $9.99, period not stated.
- Processing
- Not stated precisely; the vendor claims privacy and encryption.
- Best for
- Semantic search by text, tags or another photo. Last updated November 2023.
- Source
- App Store
Stream - Manage & Find Photos
- Price (US)
- $1.99 a month, $14.99 a year or $39.99 lifetime.
- Processing
- On the device (vendor claim).
- Best for
- Searching photos spread across the phone, WebDAV, a NAS and servers in one place.
- Source
- App Store
Image Search Engine FindMySnap
- Price (US)
- $2.99 a month, $19.99 a year or $59.99 lifetime.
- Processing
- Not stated in the US description.
- Best for
- Description search and themed shuffles of the Apple Photos library. Last updated July 2025.
- Source
- App Store
If you mean the words in the photo
“Search photos by text” usually means reading the words inside a picture — a screenshot, a receipt, a sign. That is OCR, a different job from describing a scene, and Queryable does not do it. Apple Photos searches text in photos for free. Two App Store apps specialise in it:
Memoria - Search Your Photos
- Price (US)
- Free; Memoria Plus $8.99 once.
- Processing
- On the device (vendor claim).
- Best for
- Searching text in photos, speech in videos and faces — exactly the things Queryable leaves out.
- Source
- App Store
Search Photos (Alco Blom)
- Price (US)
- Free; “Unlimited Search” $4.99.
- Processing
- Not stated; it uses text recognition on the library.
- Best for
- Finding photos by the text printed in them.
- Source
- App Store
The apps that search the web instead
Search the App Store for “photo search ai”, “semantic photo search” or “search photos by description” and the top result is often a web reverse image search app: Reverse Image Search & AI Lens, Reversee or Photo Sherlock. They send your picture to web engines such as Google Lens, Bing, Yandex and TinEye to find where it appears online. They do not search your library. If that is what you need, they are the right tool; if you want “more photos like this one from my camera roll”, see reverse image search on iPhone.
Choosing, in three questions
Three questions settle most cases before price comes into it.
- Does your iPhone have Apple Intelligence? If yes, try Apple Photos first; it is free and already there.
- Where should the photos live? Backed up to a big cloud (Google Photos, OneDrive), encrypted and synced (Ente), on your own server (Immich), or only on the phone (Ente’s gallery mode, Queryable and most of the smaller apps).
- Do you need the words in the photo, or the faces? Then pick an app with OCR or face grouping — Apple Photos, Google Photos, Ente, Immich, Memoria — because a scene-description model alone will not do it.
Methodology
Every entry was read from its US App Store listing (through the public iTunes lookup and the apps.apple.com page) or the vendor’s own documentation and pricing page on October 30, 2026. We list an app if its own listing or documentation says it searches photos by a typed description, plus Amazon Photos and the OCR apps to mark the edges of the question. Prices are as listed; where a plan’s period is not stated, we say so. “Vendor claim” means we have not verified where processing happens.
We did not run a hands-on accuracy test, so nothing here ranks search quality. The order is by type, not by merit. Queryable is our app — this page is written by its developer — and its entry gives its limits alongside its strengths. If a fact here is out of date, the linked source is authoritative.
Our verdict
Said as plainly as someone with a horse in the race can say it. Queryable is our app, so read that bullet most sceptically.
- If you have an iPhone with Apple Intelligence and want free, use Apple Photos.
- If you want free, private search with encrypted backup — or you also use Android or a computer — use Ente Photos.
- If your library already lives in Google Photos and you are happy with that, use Google Photos.
- If you run a home server, use Immich.
- If you need to find the words inside screenshots, use Apple Photos’ text search or Memoria.
- Queryable — the app this site is about — is for searching the Apple Photos library you already have, on any iPhone with iOS 18, no Apple Intelligence needed, by description or by a sample photo, with no network request of its own, plus a cleaner for similar shots, for $4.99 once.
A shorter, list-shaped version of this page is photo search alternatives.
Common questions
Can Apple Photos search by description?
Yes, with Apple Intelligence on an iPhone 15 Pro, 15 Pro Max, iPhone 16 or later, or iPhone Air. Without it, Photos searches dates, places, categories, named people and pets, and text in photos.
Is there a free app that searches iPhone photos by description offline?
Yes. Ente Photos runs MobileCLIP-based search on the device for free, with no account in gallery mode, and several smaller App Store apps are free. Queryable is paid ($4.99 once). Checked October 30, 2026.
Which apps search photos by description without a subscription?
Apple Photos, Ente Photos and Immich are free; Queryable ($4.99) and Photo Search - AI Find Image ($4.99) are one-time purchases. Others in this list use subscriptions or optional upgrades. US prices, October 30, 2026.
Does Google Photos search photos that are not backed up?
Google’s help says search covers backed-up photos, and new photos may take 3–5 days to become searchable.