Google Photos not only enables you to efficiently store your images or videos on your smartphone but also organizes and labels them into categories. This means the app makes it easier for you to sort and search for your files based on the date, time, location as well as other factors.

One of the notable features of Google Photos is that it can recognize faces in your stored photographs and then segregate them into a dedicated ‘People’ folder. This makes it easier to keep track of your images with a certain someone, be it a family member, friend, the next-door neighbor’s husky or even your spouse. You can tag anyone and build albums without having to exclusively spend time and energy on it.

But, over the weekend, some of the users have taken to Google’s product forum to complain that the ‘People’ folder has vanished from within their Google Photos app. They’re complaining about the issue in huge numbers as this has caused their tagged photos to simply disappear from the folder without any notice. Users are steadily growing anxious about the loss of their albums. They believe it may be a server-side issue and their ‘People’ folders will be restored to the original form soon.

The problem has been acknowledged by the Google Photos team and a fix for the same is already underway. In a product forum post, Benjamin Crane, Google Photos community manager said,

We’re aware of this and our team is looking into it. I’ll post to this thread when we have an update to provide or if it’s been fixed.

And as we’ve already mentioned, the disappearance of the People folder is limited to a handful of users. But, to check out if the same problem plagues you or not, head over to the Google Photos app and check the ‘People’ folder under the album section — found to the extreme right in the bottom navigation bar.

But, do also remember and check whether you have the face detection feature enabled in the settings window or not. Now, to check that, open the hamburger menu from the left and navigate to the settings window to find the ‘group similar faces’ option. If photos start appearing in the People album then you should be relieved as your app isn’t affected by the unknown bug. And if you’re one of the affected users, have some patience and check for updates on the situation.