Choosing a memorial photo: finding the right picture of a pet who died

After a pet dies, you cannot take a new photo. The pictures you already have become the only source for a portrait, a scrapbook or a frame. This page explains how to find every photo of your dog or cat across phones, accounts and family members, how to recover pictures deleted by mistake, how to choose the one picture your family wants to remember, and how to keep the files safe. For camera technique, such as light and angle, read our article on how to photograph your pet for a portrait. For the full set of steps toward a memorial portrait, see the main guide to pet memorial portraits.

Go at your own pace

Looking through years of photos soon after a loss can be hard. The University of Florida College of Veterinary Medicine lists a scrapbook or photo album among the ways to remember a pet, so the search can be part of grieving. But there is no deadline. If you are not ready, ask a family member or a friend to collect the photos into one album for you, and come back to them later.

Where photos of your pet may be

Photos of a pet are often spread across phones, computers, cloud accounts and other people's devices.

Your phone's own pet album

Phones can now sort a library by animal. Apple says that starting with iOS 17, iPadOS 17 and macOS Sonoma, the Photos app detects pet photos and videos and places them in the People & Pets album. To do this, the iPhone or iPad must be locked and connected to power. Apple says the sorting can finish quickly or take up to a few days, depending on the size of the library.

Google Photos does something similar. Google Photos Help says the app groups photos by similar faces, including pets, under Collections and then People & pets. You can add a name or nickname to a group, and then search your whole library by that name. Google says the labels you choose are private to you, even if you share the photos. It also says the feature is not available in every region or for every account type.

Once a pet has its own album or label, you can scroll through years of pictures of that one animal in a few minutes.

The trash album

In the first days after a death, some owners delete photos they cannot bear to see, or clear space on a full phone. Those photos may still be recoverable.

• iPhone, iPad and Mac: Apple says a deleted photo or video goes to the Recently Deleted album and stays there for 30 days. After 30 days it is permanently deleted and cannot be recovered.
• Google Photos: Google Photos Help says items in the trash are permanently deleted after 30 days. You can restore an item only if it is still in the trash and you have not emptied the trash.

If a favourite picture seems to be missing, check the trash before anything else. Do not empty it until you are sure you have what you need.

Old accounts and old devices

A pet who lived 15 years may appear in photos on phones you no longer use, on an old laptop, or in an email or cloud account you rarely open. Google Photos Help warns that if you are inactive in Google Photos for two years or more, your content may be deleted. If you have an old account with photos of your pet, sign in and download the pictures soon.

Other people's phones

Family members, friends, dog walkers, pet sitters and groomers may all have pictures you have never seen. The shelter or breeder may have a photo from adoption day. Ask them. When they send a photo, ask for the original file from their photo library, because the largest version keeps the most detail.

The University of Florida suggests asking family and friends who knew your pet to write down something special they remember, for a scrapbook or album. A request for photos and a request for memories can go in the same message.

Videos

Many recent memories are videos. If the best view of your pet's face is in a video, pause at a moment where the face is clear and not moving, and save that frame as a photo or a screenshot. A frame from a video often has less detail than a photo, so compare it with any photos you have from the same time.

Printed photos

For a pet from the years before phone cameras, the best photos may be prints in an album or a drawer. Our page on restoring and scanning old pet photos explains how to handle, scan and store them without damage.

Make a short list

When the photos are gathered, put your favourites in one album or folder. Then narrow them down in stages:

1. Choose every photo that makes you think "that is her" or "that is him". Aim for 20 or fewer.
2. Remove any where the face is hidden, turned away or blurred.
3. Show the rest to your family and ask each person to pick three.
4. Look for the photos that more than one person picked.

The Ohio State University Veterinary Medical Center reminds families that each member may have had a different bond with the pet and may grieve differently. One person may remember the playful puppy and another the calm old dog by the fire. A short list chosen together lets everyone take part.

Which pet do you want to remember?

A portrait shows one moment, so it helps to decide which part of your pet's life you want to see every day.

There is no wrong answer. A family can order two portraits, one young and one old. Others keep the portrait for the prime years and put the final photos in an album or a memory box, which Ohio State lists among memorial ideas.

Think about the pet's expression too. A dog with its ears up and head tilted, or a cat with the half-closed eyes of a nap in the sun, may say more about its character than a formal pose.

What the portrait needs from the photo

The Purrealism portrait studio takes one photo of up to 5 MB. The clearer the face in that one photo, the more the portrait will look like your pet. The article on how to photograph your pet for a portrait lists what makes a photo work, such as sharp eyes and a face with nothing in front of it.

The photo checker further down this page helps with the final choice. It reads a photo in your browser and shows its pixel size, its file size against the 5 MB limit, its brightness and its sharpness. The photo never leaves your device.

If your chosen photo is larger than 5 MB, most phones can export a smaller copy. Keep the full-size original as well.

Keep the photos safe

Once you have found the photos of your pet, protect them. They cannot be replaced.

The U.S. National Archives recommends the 3-2-1 rule for important files: three copies, stored on two different kinds of storage, with one copy kept off-site. It also suggests file names that use only letters, numbers, hyphens and underscores, and adding basic information to each file: who, what, where and when.

The Library of Congress gives similar advice in its guide to personal collections. It suggests at least two copies, for example one on a computer and others on a portable drive or online storage, kept in different places as far apart as practical. It also suggests moving your files to current storage every five to seven years, because storage devices age.

A simple plan for a pet's photos:

• Put every photo of the pet in one folder named with the pet's name and years, for example "Biscuit-2011-2026".
• Keep that folder on your computer.
• Copy it to a portable drive that lives in a different room or house.
• Copy it to an online account.
• Share the folder with family, so each person has the pictures.

Next steps

With a photo chosen, you can think about the words that go with it. Our page on writing a pet dedication shows short examples. If you plan to unveil the portrait on a special date, our page on anniversaries of a pet's death has ideas for the day.