How to add captions to multiple Google Photos at once

In Google Photos, what many people call a caption is stored in the photo's description field. Bulk Edit Google Photos: Enhance, Delete, Caption & Find Your Best, which I'll call Batch below, can write a description across a selected group instead of making you open each photo one by one. That text is searchable, which is the part most people miss: a photo with "Dad's 70th, Lisbon" written on it can be found years later by typing either of those words.

Captions, descriptions and visible text are not the same thing

• The Google Photos description field is metadata shown in the info panel next to the photo.
• It is not text printed over the image.
• Album text, such as an album title or a text card, is separate from a per-photo description.
• Search behaviour varies. Descriptions are indexed, but indexing is not always instant, so test a search on a few photos rather than assuming the whole batch is findable straight away.

The catch is the same as everywhere else in Google Photos. You can only write one caption at a time.

Why captions are worth the effort

• Google Photos search reads the description field.
• Names of people, places and events that Google cannot recognise become findable.
• Shared albums make more sense to everyone else looking at them.
• Scanned archives get context that would otherwise be lost with the people who remember it.

Adding a caption by hand

1. Open photos.google.com and open a photo.
2. Click the info button, or press the i key.
3. Click "Add a description" and type.
4. Click away to save.
5. Open the next photo and repeat.

How to add the same description to multiple Google Photos at once

1. Install Batch from the Chrome Web Store.
2. Open Google Photos in Chrome and click Batch.
3. Select the group that shares a story: an album, a date range, or a manual selection.
4. Choose Description.
5. Type the description you want on every photo in the group, for example "Costa Rica, March 2026".
6. Start the run and leave the tab open. Batch writes the description into each photo through Google Photos itself.

There is also AI Describe, which writes a description per photo based on what is in the picture, when you want individual text rather than one shared line.

What to write

Short and factual beats clever. The description is a search key, not a headline. Event, place, year, and the names of the people who matter will serve you better in ten years than a joke will.

A pattern that works well: one shared description per group, written the same way each time, so searching a place or a year returns the whole set.

FAQ

Are Google Photos captions searchable?

Yes. Text in the description field is indexed by Google Photos search, which is what makes bulk descriptions useful.

Can I change a description later?

Yes. The field can be edited at any time, one photo at a time or across a selection again.

Does a caption change the photo itself?

No. The description is metadata. The image is untouched.

How do I add captions to Google Photos?

Open a photo, open its info panel and type in the description field. For many photos, select the group in Batch and apply the shared description in one run.

Can I add different captions to every photo in one batch?

A Description run writes one shared description across the selection. If you want text that differs per photo, use AI Describe, which writes a description per photo based on what is in the picture, or run separate selections with their own shared text.

Will the description be embedded in the downloaded photo file?

Do not count on it. The description lives in Google Photos as metadata. When you export with Google Takeout, the description is delivered in the sidecar JSON file that sits next to each photo rather than guaranteed inside the image's own EXIF or IPTC fields. Check one exported photo before relying on it elsewhere, and see Google's current documentation.

Can other people see descriptions in a shared album?

People viewing a shared album can see the description in the photo's info panel. Who can change it depends on the album's current sharing permissions, so check the album settings if edit access matters.

Where to go next

Captions pair naturally with a cleanup pass. Start from the pillar guide to bulk edit Google Photos, or enhance the album before adding captions, choose the best photos before describing them, add context to scanned family photos or download your Google Photos library. Everything else lives in the guides.