--- title: Describe items | Relic Help description: Give the things you keep, and every photo, a short title and a few topic tags, so you can search what a picture shows or what a note is about. canonical: https://relic.space/help/describe-items source: https://relic.space/llms.txt --- AI on your device # Describe items Give the things you keep, and every photo, a short title and a few topic tags, so you can search what a picture shows or what a note is about. Updated 10 September 2026 · Windows, Mac, Linux ## [What describing does](#what-it-does) Some things have no words in them at all. A photo of a cable, a snap of a whiteboard, a note you never got round to naming. Describing gives each one a short title and a few topic tags, written on your computer from what is actually in the item. After that you can search for what the picture shows, or what the note is about, instead of trying to remember the day you saved it. Two item rows. The first is a photo whose line reads Analyzing, with a small spinner, while the models look at it. The second is the same kind of photo once it is done: the title reads Speaker manual, AURORA S2, front panel and the tags are manual, audio and product. A photo while it is being described, and the title and tags it ends up with. ## [Turning it on](#turn-it-on) The row sits with the other AI rows in [Settings: Search and AI](https://relic.space/help/settings-search-and-ai#describing-items), and it starts off. Describe items Give saved items a short title and topic tags, so you can search what a photo shows or what a note is about. Applies to vault items and every photo. Off by default: it downloads \~666 MB and runs in the background at about a second per item. Settings › Search and AI › Smart tags › Describe items: toggle, default off. Two reasons it is off to begin with. It needs another download, about 666 MB on top of the models Relic already has. And it takes about a second of your computer per item, in the background. Turn it on if your vault has a lot of photos, or a lot of notes with no names. It covers the items you keep and every photo, kept or not. A photo with nothing written on it is otherwise almost impossible to find again. A line of text you copied can always be found by its own words. Your own titles and tags are safe. Relic only writes a title where you have not, and it never removes a tag you added or takes back one you deleted. ## [Describing history too](#history-too) This second row appears once the first one is on. Describe history too Also describe clipboard items you never saved to the vault. Most copies are throwaway and each costs about a second, so this is off unless you want everything covered. Settings › Search and AI › Smart tags › Describe history too: toggle, default off. On, it widens the work to everything you have ever copied, including the things you never kept. Most copies are throwaway and each one costs about a second of the computer, so leave it off unless you really do want the lot covered. ## [Tags for what a picture shows](#image-tags) A separate row tags the contents of a picture: a person, an animal, a product and so on. It is on to begin with, and it does not need the extra download. Smart content tags Tag what an image shows (people, animal, product…). The primary category is kept either way. Settings › Search and AI › Smart tags › Smart content tags: toggle, default on. With it off, an image still gets its main group, so it is still filed as a screenshot or a photo. You just lose the finer tags for what is in the frame. ## [The same title on every device](#across-devices) A generated title and its tags travel to your other devices with the item, so every device shows the same name for it, including phones that cannot run the models at all. When you have more than one computer, they share the work out instead of both grinding through the same item, and the first one to finish an item is the one whose answer everybody keeps. Relic locks the title and tags on your device before they go, the same as the item itself. * Change the title yourself and your version wins on every device. * Turn the switch off and nothing new is described. Titles already written stay. * A phone shows what a computer produced. See [Phones and tablets](https://relic.space/help/on-device-ai#phones). If it feels slow Describing is the most expensive thing Relic does on your computer. If you notice it, [turn the analysis speed down](https://relic.space/help/settings-search-and-ai#speed) and it will keep out of your way. That page is [Analysis speed](https://relic.space/help/analysis-speed). Related [TagsFind](https://relic.space/help/tags)[Search by meaningFind](https://relic.space/help/search-by-meaning)[Settings: Search and AISettings reference](https://relic.space/help/settings-search-and-ai)