How to Stop Being Reminded of Memories You Don’t Want to Be Reminded of

Last year, on a perfect spring day that also happened to be my birthday, I took a road trip to a beautiful part of New York State. It was a lovely day. New foliage was emerging and flocks of migratory birds were flying overhead – the right day for lots of photos and fond memories.

Unfortunately, my reason for traveling upstate was not for the flora and fauna, but to attend my best friend’s funeral. I took a lot of photos that day: of other friends attending worship, of the river paths and local parks that my best friend and I walked together, and of the house she lived in with her parents, now empty. I took all those photos because I knew it would probably be the last time I would visit that place.

And a year later, predictably, Google popped up in my notifications with an invitation to revisit the “wonderful” memories of that day. It wasn’t something I needed — or wanted — a reminder of, especially an upbeat reminder that assumed I had a great time and wanted to share all those exciting memories with all my friends.

I’m sure I’m not the only one who finds these pop-ups less of a joy and more of an emotional arrow aimed at your heart.

Of course, you can avoid these notifications by simply logging off the Internet or muting all your notifications – but if you have friends you want to stay in touch with or notifications that are important to you, this won’t work. Additionally, you can as have some of these memory reminders appear – but not all. What if, say, you simply want to avoid photos of an ex or the trip you made a fool of yourself on?

Perhaps because of all claims, some of the most egregious offenders – Google Photos, Apple Photos, Facebook and Microsoft OneDrive – have ways to prevent them from appearing. Depending on the app, you can adjust its settings to avoid specific memory notifications – or stop them altogether.

Here’s how to control unwanted memories from these four apps.

You can adjust the Memories feature in Google Photos to stop specific groups of photos or stop it entirely. The process differs depending on whether you are using a desktop or mobile app.

(Yes, it would be nice if Google’s latest AI feature — whatever they want to call it — could do this for you with a single request, but as with so many other things, AI isn’t there yet.)

• Go to settings (the gear in the top right corner) and scroll down to Memories.
• If there is a specific date you don’t want to be reminded of (or multiple specific dates), select Hide dates > Add dates and add the date (or date range) you want to avoid.
• If there is a specific person or pet you do not want to be reminded of, select Hide people and pets. You’ll see a collection of all the faces Photos found in your images. Click on the one you don’t want to see and it will be grayed out with a “don’t see” symbol. Click on it again if you want to restore it.
• If you don’t want any pop-up memory, disable Time-Based Memories It is Thematic memories.

• Tap your personal icon (in the top right corner) and Photo Settings > Preferences.
• Select Memories.
• To choose Hide people or Hide dates to interrupt memories of specific people or dates. (They work the same way as the “hide” feature in the desktop app.)
• To disable pop-up memories, select Notifications and disable Time-Based Memories or Thematic memories.

If you use the Apple Photos app for iPhone, there are several ways to slow down or prevent people or events from appearing when they’re not wanted through the app’s Memories features.

To control how often you see a specific person, pet, or other content:

• At the Photos app, find a photo of the person you don’t want to be reminded of.
• Tap the three dots in the top right corner and select Feature this person less.
• Select Feature this person less or Never highlight this person.

If you want certain content to appear less frequently:

• I go to the For you guide in Apple PhotosSelect a memory and tap the three dots in the top right corner.
• Tap Feature Less and then confirm.

If you’re the kind of person who gets irritated by being bombarded with vacation photos (and believe me, I sympathize), then you can stop them specifically in the main settings:

• In settingsselect Photos.
• Scroll down to Show holiday events and disable it.

And while you’re there – if you want to switch off Memories completely on your iPhone (which will also cut Featured Photos):

• Go to Settings > Photos.
• Scroll down to Show featured content and disable it.

Yes, I know – it’s Facebook. But it’s also where a lot of your relatives are, so it’s hard to let that go. But you don’t have to let it constantly remind you of things you don’t want to be reminded of.

• In the side menu, select Memories > Notifications.
• If you want to stop memories completely, select None under Notifications.
• If you want to stop Memories for specific people or dates, or use keywords, go to Hide memories further down the page and select the appropriate category.

• Tap your personal icon in the top right corner and select Memories.
• Select the settings (gear) icon.
• If you want to stop Memories completely, select None under Notifications.
• If you want to break down Memories of specific people or dates, or use keywords, search for Hide memories further down the page and select the appropriate category.

Microsoft, not to be left behind, offers OneDrive Memories. Fortunately, it’s easy to turn off.

• You can go directly to OneDrive Notifications option for by going to this link; otherwise, if you are using the website, click the gear in the top right and go to Options > Notifications.
• You will see several options for Email me when. Uncheck the box next to On this day memories are available.

• In the mobile app, tap My (your personal icon in the bottom right corner), then Settings > Notifications.
• You can then disable notifications for In this day It is Memories from last month.