Stop iPhone Showing Your Ex in Memories
You unlock your phone and the Photos widget is showing you and your ex at last year's Thanksgiving. Or a "Holidays 2025" memory pops up with a parent or a pet you lost this year. You don't want to delete anyone. You just don't want your phone choosing to show them to you. The fix: open any photo of that person in Photos, tap the More button, tap Don't Feature a Person, choose Never Feature This Person, and tap Confirm. Apple says that setting covers memories, featured photos and the Photos widget. The photos themselves stay in your library.
Everything below is from Apple's iPhone User Guide for iOS 26 and iOS 27, where the steps are the same. It also covers what to do about one memory that's already made, a specific day like an anniversary, and how to turn the whole feature off.
Stop featuring one person
This is the setting most people are looking for. From Apple's guide, Hide people, memories, and holidays in Photos on iPhone:
- Open the Photos app and open a photo of the person.
- Tap the More button (the circle with three dots), then tap Don't Feature a Person.
- If there's more than one person in the photo, tap the one you mean, then tap Next.
- Choose Feature This Person Less or Never Feature This Person.
- Tap Confirm.
Pick Never for an ex. Less is gentler and suits someone you've lost: they still turn up now and then, just not every week.
Tip: this works on the people Photos recognizes. If the photos that keep coming up are of a place (their apartment, the trip you took together) or a date, use the memory-level options below instead.
Get rid of a memory that's already there
Memories already made don't always disappear straight away. Deal with the one in front of you:
- In Photos, tap Collections.
- Swipe left under Memories, or tap Memories to see them all.
- Touch and hold the memory, then tap Feature Less and pick Feature This Day Less, Feature This Place Less or Feature a Person Less, whichever the memory offers.
- To get rid of it altogether, touch and hold it and tap Delete Memory.
A memory is a slideshow Photos put together. Deleting it doesn't delete the photos in it. Those stay in your library.
Feature This Day Less is the one for an anniversary, a wedding date or the day someone died, the dates Photos likes to bring back "on this day".
Stop the holiday memories
From now until New Year, Photos is likely to build memories around holidays. If Thanksgiving or Christmas photos are the hard ones this year, you can turn just those off:
- In Photos, tap Collections.
- Tap your account (your picture or initials) in the top-right corner.
- Turn off Show Holiday Events.
Apple says this stops Photos making memories and featured content about holidays in your home country or region. Your other memories keep coming.
Turn memories and featured photos off completely
If you'd rather Photos didn't pick anything for you right now, turn the whole feature off. On the same screen (Photos > Collections > your account in the top-right corner), turn off Show Featured Content. Apple says that stops Photos from making featured photos and memories automatically. You can turn it back on later.
On iOS 18 these switches and the reset buttons are in the Settings app instead, under Settings > Apps > Photos, according to Apple's Personal Safety User Guide.
The widget and the notifications
Apple says the Feature Less and Never Feature settings apply to the Photos widget too, so you shouldn't need to remove it. If you'd still rather it wasn't there, touch and hold the widget on your Home Screen and tap Remove Widget. That removes the widget, not any photos.
If what gets you is the "You have a new memory" alert, go to Settings > Notifications > Photos and turn the notifications off.
Keep the photos, but out of sight
Never Feature only stops Photos from offering the person to you. Their photos are still in your library, in search and in the People collection. If you want them out of the way without losing them, hide them. From Apple's Delete or hide photos and videos guide:
- In your library or a collection, tap Select and tap the photos.
- Tap the More button, then tap Hide.
Hidden photos move to the Hidden collection (under Utilities in Collections), and Apple says "You can't view them anywhere else." The Hidden collection is locked with Face ID, Touch ID or your passcode by default. With iCloud Photos on, hiding a photo hides it on all your devices. To bring one back, open Hidden, tap the photo, tap More, then Unhide.
If you're sure you want them gone, deleting works too. But with iCloud Photos on, a deleted photo is removed from every device on your Apple Account, and it sits in Recently Deleted for 30 days before it's gone for good. If there's any chance you'll want them one day, and that's often true when someone has died, copy them somewhere first. Here's how to move iPhone photos to an external drive.
Changed your mind?
In Photos, tap Collections, tap your account in the top-right corner, then tap Reset People & Pets Suggestions to undo Never Feature and Feature Less for people. Reset Suggested Memories undoes the Feature Less choices you made on memories. These settings only change what your own iPhone shows you. They don't change anything on anyone else's phone, including in albums you share with them.
What Phone Diet can and can't do here
Full disclosure: we make Phone Diet. It can't change what Photos puts in Memories, Featured Photos or the widget. Those settings belong to Apple's Photos app, and the steps above are the only way to change them. Phone Diet also doesn't sort photos by person, so it won't find every photo of someone for you.
What it does have is a Private tab: an encrypted vault with its own 4-digit PIN, separate from your phone's passcode. When you move photos in, Phone Diet deletes the originals from Photos, so they stop showing up in your library, search and Memories altogether. Two things to know before you use it. Adding photos to the vault needs Premium (viewing, exporting and restoring what's already there is free). And the vault's files are kept out of backups, so if you lose the phone or delete the app, those photos go with it. Keep a copy somewhere else first.
Who it's not for: if you only want your phone to stop bringing someone up, you don't need it. Never Feature This Person and the Hidden collection are free and built in, and for most people they're enough. The vault is for photos you want behind a separate lock. Here's how it compares with the Hidden collection: how to hide photos on iPhone.
Questions people ask
How do I stop my iPhone showing photos of my ex in Memories?
Open a photo of them in Photos, tap More, tap Don't Feature a Person, choose Never Feature This Person, then Confirm. Apple says it covers memories, featured photos and the Photos widget.
Does Never Feature This Person delete their photos?
No. The photos stay in your library and in search. To get them out of view too, hide them or delete them.
How do I turn off Memories on iPhone completely?
Photos > Collections > your account in the top-right corner > turn off Show Featured Content. Show Holiday Events, on the same screen, stops just the holiday ones.
Can I undo Never Feature This Person?
Yes: Photos > Collections > your account > Reset People & Pets Suggestions.
Do hidden photos show up in Memories or the widget?
Apple says hidden photos move to the Hidden collection and can't be viewed anywhere else. That collection is locked with Face ID, Touch ID or your passcode by default.
Want some photos behind their own lock?
Phone Diet's Private tab keeps photos in an encrypted vault with its own PIN, out of your library and out of Memories. Adding photos needs Premium.
Get Phone Diet on the App Store