Apple’s Photos app is not your regular image gallery. It uses intelligent machine learning to curate, organize, declutter, and highlight your best shots and most important moments like anniversaries and birthdays.

Photos also curates and weaves images and videos together into Memories that you can easily personalize and share. Here’s everything you need to know about Memories in Photos.

What Is the Memories Feature in Photos?

Memories intelligently scans your photos and videos and automatically creates a personalized collection, focusing on people, places, or events that it deems to be significant.

Photos weaves these images together into a curated collection of memorable moments, which you can view as movies, called Memory Movies. These clips come with a title, theme music, and cinematic transitions that you can modify and share with others.

Memories are like specialized subfolders in your Photos app. You can do specific actions to manage your Memories.

How to Play a Memory Movie in Photos

Playback controls on Memories on Mac Photos

Just go to Photos, click Memories in the sidebar, then select any of your Memories. Hit the play button on the title image. Change the mood and duration by clicking the Settings icon on the video playback controls.

How to View Your Memories in Photos

Memories in Photos on Mac

To view your Memories, go to the Photos app, then click Memories in the sidebar. Scroll to view all your Memories, then double-click on a Memory to view all the photos it contains.

You’ll see one of two options with your photos:

  • Show More: Click this button to expand the view and see all the photos the Memory contains.
  • Show Summary: Click this to see just the summary of your Memory’s content.

Related: How to Create Your Own Memories in the iPhone Photos App

You can also see who’s in the memory by scrolling down to People. If you double-click on a person, Photos will show you other pictures that person is in. Similarly, you can scroll down to Places; double-click on the map, then click Show Nearby Photos to show images taken in the same location.

People and Related Memories on Ma

How to Delete a Memory in Photos

Photos automatically generates Memories for you. You can remove Memories that you do not like. Deleting them does not delete their contents from your library. Here’s how to delete Memories on your Mac:

  1. Open Photos.
  2. Click Memories in the sidebar.
  3. Select the Memory you want to delete, then hit Delete. Alternatively, double-click the Memory, scroll down to the bottom, then click Delete Memory.

Options Below Memories

How to Make Your Own Memories on a Mac

While Photos is responsible for creating Memories, you can also create your own Memories by creating a new album or converting an existing album into a Memory. To do this:

  1. Open the Photos app.
  2. Click My Albums on the sidebar.
  3. Click Show as Memory on the toolbar at the top of the window. Photos will change the album’s appearance into a Memory; however, it won’t be saved to your Memories section until you scroll down and click Create Photo Memory at the bottom.

You should now be able to see a Memory created from this slideshow. Deleting this Memory will not remove the slideshow of the photos and videos it contains. They will be retained in your photo library.

Add Photos in a Memory to Another Album

If you have an extensive list of photos, browsing and sifting through your entire list to find certain images to add to an album can be challenging. Follow these steps to add pictures from a Memory to an album:

  1. Open Photos, then click Memories in the sidebar.
  2. Select and double-click the Memory containing the photos you want to add.
  3. Choose Show More, then select the images you want to add.
  4. Control-click to open the contextual menu. Select Add to > New Album. Alternatively, you can go to the menu bar and click File > Add to > New Album with Selection ([number] Photos).
  5. A new album containing the photos will appear, with an open text field for you to input the file name.
Adding Photos to a New Album

If you want to add your selected photos to an existing folder, choose the images, Control-click, select Add to, and select any from your existing albums.

Share Your Memories With Others

Memories are meant to be shared. Note that whenever you share them, you’re sending the photos and videos contained in the Memories instead of the Memory Movie itself.

Related: The Best Mac Image Viewer Apps With Unique Features

If you’d rather send them in movie format, you can create your own project slideshow. Slideshows are exported as movie files and can be shared with others.

How to See Certain Memories Less

Since Photos automatically generates Memories, there may be instances that you don’t want to see Memories that have content that you don’t like.

Click a Memory you want to see less of, then scroll down to choose Feature Fewer Memories Like This.

Other Tricks You Can Do With Memories

Photos allows you to do more with your Memories.

Select Favorite Memories

Favorite Memories Tab

You can mark Memories as your favorites to access them faster. To do this, just scroll to the bottom and select Add to Favorite Memories. You can access your favorite Memories by clicking the Favorite Memories tab on top of the window.

Photos can create up to three Memories per day, depending on the available space in your photo library. If you have other memories taken in the same location or with the same people, you can view them by scrolling at the bottom and clicking View related memories.

Rename Memories

Memories are named by the date they were made, by default. You can rename your Memories by clicking the Info (i) button on the toolbar and replacing the current name.

Relive Memories With the Photos App

The Photos app’s Memories feature is an excellent way to relive treasured moments. Do more with Memories by customizing its content, sharing them with others, or using it to find related photos or images taken with the people and places you love.