The Visual Look Up feature on iPhone allows you to identify objects, such as books, popular landmarks, artworks, etc., in your images to provide more information about them. However, this feature may not allow you to identify a dog breed, flowers or other things around you.
There are several reasons why Visual Look Up may refuse to work on your iPhone. However, the first thing to do is restart your iPhone. If that doesn’t help, try these best ways to fix Visual Look Up on your iPhone.
1. Check if the iPhone supports visual search
If you cannot use Visual Look Up on your iPhone, the first thing you need to check is if your iPhone supports this feature. Visual Look Up is only available on iPhones with Apple A12 Bionic processors or later.
Here is a list of compatible iPhones that support Visual Look Up:
- iPhone 14, iPhone 14 Plus, iPhone 14 Pro, iPhone 14 Pro Max
- iPhone 13, iPhone 13 mini, iPhone 13 Pro, iPhone 13 Pro Max
- iPhone 12, iPhone 12 mini, iPhone 12 Pro, iPhone 12 Pro Max
- iPhone 11, iPhone 11 Pro, iPhone 11 Pro Max
- iPhone XS, iPhone XS Max, iPhone XR
- iPhone SE (2nd generation and later)
On top of that, these compatible phones must be running at least iOS 15 or higher to use the feature.
If you have one of the iPhones listed above, you can access Visual Look Up by tapping the “i” icon with sparkles (left) that appears below supported images. Meanwhile, if the image does not support Visual Look Up, you will see the usual ‘i’ icon (on the right).
If you need more help using Visual Look Up on your iPhone, tap the “i” icon with sparkles, select the identified topic and it will open Visual Look Up results.
2. Get the latest iOS update
If you haven’t updated your iPhone to iOS 15 or later, Visual Look Up won’t work for you. Therefore, now might be the time for you to update your iPhone to the latest version of iOS.
Here’s how to easily install the latest iOS updates on your iPhone:
Step 1: Locate and open the Settings app on your iPhone.
2nd step: Scroll down and tap General.
Step 3: Under General, tap the option that says Software Update.
Step 4: Let your iPhone check for the latest iOS updates. If a new update is available, tap Download and Install.
Meanwhile, if your iPhone already has iOS 15 or later versions of iOS, proceed to the next solution.
3. Check if your iPhone is connected to the Internet
Visual Lookup requires an active internet connection to identify objects in your images and find more relevant information about them. So check if your iPhone is connected to the internet via cellular data or Wi-Fi.
If you’re already connected to Wi-Fi or a cellular network and still having issues with Visual Look Up, we recommend that you open Control Center on your iPhone to enable Airplane Mode for 30 seconds, then disable it. This will restore the network connection on your iPhone.
You can also check our guide on how to fix Wi-Fi issues on iPhone or how to fix cellular data issues on iPhone if you are still having connectivity issues.
Although Visual Look Up can be very useful in helping you identify objects in your images, it is still a work in progress. Visual Look Up has a few limitations that may prevent it from working with all images in your photo library.
Currently, Visual Look Up only helps you identify art, books, nature, animals, and landmarks in your images. Additionally, Visual Look Up may have difficulty identifying objects in your images if there are multiple subjects in the frame or if it is obstructed.
For example, in the screenshots below, Visual Look Up can identify the book in the image and display the Visual Look Up icon. On the contrary, it cannot identify the same book when pens and pencils obstruct it.
You can use Visual Look Up after resuming the image or with other images in the Photos app to see if it works as expected. If not, move on to other solutions.
5. Check your iPhone’s region and language settings
The visual search feature is only available in certain regions, including Australia, Canada, India, Singapore, United Kingdom, United States, France, Germany, Italy, Japan, Mexico and Spain. Also, Visual Look Up only supports a few languages, including English, French, German, Spanish, Japanese, and Italian.
If Visual Look Up is not available in your region, you can change your iPhone’s region and language settings to get it. Here’s how:
Step 1: Open the Settings app on your iPhone.
2nd step: Scroll down and tap General.
Step 3: Under General, tap the option that says Language & Region.
Step 4: Tap the option that says Region.
Step 5: When a list of regions appears, select United States or any other region that supports Visual Look Up.
Step 6: After changing region, tap Add language to support that of the region.
Step 7: When a list of languages appears, select English (United States) or any other language that supports Visual Look Up.
6. Enable Show in Search for Siri
Visual Look Up results also include Siri Knowledge entries derived from the suggestions to provide you with relevant results. This is why it is necessary to enable search suggestions in Siri on your iPhone.
Here’s how to quickly turn on Show in Siri’s Search option on your iPhone:
Step 1: Locate and open the Settings app on your iPhone.
2nd step: Scroll down and tap on the Siri & Search option.
Step 3: Enable the toggle next to “Show in search”.
Quickly fix visual search on your iPhone
You can easily use the solutions listed above to troubleshoot and fix issues that may be preventing Visual Look Up from working properly on your iPhone. Once you’ve done this, you can use your iPhone to instantly identify objects in your images and find more information about them.
However, if it still refuses to work, we recommend using Google Lens instead of Visual Look Up. Besides landmarks, animals and plants, Google Lens can help you find similar products, as well as translate or copy text from images and more.