How to Turn Top Photo On or Off on Hinge

To turn Top Photo on or off, tap your Photo icon at the bottom right of Hinge, tap the Pencil icon, and switch the Top Photo toggle. Purple means on and gray means off. On Android the change saves by itself, but on iPhone you have to tap Done at the top right of Edit Profile to save it.

Hinge's help page says Top Photo uses a machine learning model to predict which of your photos is most likely to get you a like. It then puts that photo first. The page also says Hinge keeps testing your photos and reordering them while the setting is on.

A few details from the same page are worth knowing:

• With Top Photo on, the order other people see can differ from the order you see in Edit Profile and View Profile.
• It keeps testing and reordering while your account is paused.
• It only uses photos you have added yourself, and those still have to follow Hinge's rules.
• Hinge says it does not collect or process your facial geometry.

That first point matters most. With the switch on, looking at your own page no longer tells you which photo a woman sees first.

Hinge's own help page says a first photo is crucial to making a good first impression. That matches what every man who has tested his photos already knows. The lead photo decides whether she looks at anything else.

She is not studying it. She is making a quick call about whether you look like someone she would enjoy an evening with. A clear face, a real setting and an easy expression win that call. A group shot, a hat and sunglasses, or a photo from five years ago lose it.

Leave it on if all your photos are decent and you honestly cannot tell which one is best.

Most men are bad judges of their own photos. They pick the one where they think they look strongest. Their friends pick the one where he looks most like the man they already know. A model watching which photo actually gets likes is a more neutral judge than either.

It also helps if you have not thought much about order at all. Letting Hinge test beats leaving your gym mirror shot in the first slot because it happened to be the first one you uploaded.

Turn it off when you have a reason to control the order yourself.

You have one clear, recent, solo photo with your face easy to see, and you want it first every time. Your photos tell a small story in order, from a close shot to your life to your friends. Or you are testing on purpose, and you need to know which photo sits first while you do it.

There is a quieter reason too. A model built to win likes judges one thing. A photo can win likes and still misrepresent you, like a rare dressed-up shot in a set of casual ones. The women who like that photo are expecting a man who dresses that way. If the rest of your life does not match it, the mismatch shows up on the first date.

With Top Photo on, any photo you upload can end up first. That changes how you should look at your set.

Go through each photo and ask one question. Would I be happy if this were the only thing she saw? If the answer is no for any of them, remove it or replace it. A weak photo sitting fifth is a small cost. The same photo tested into first place costs you every woman who sees it there.

Order is the finishing touch. It cannot rescue a set of weak photos, and it cannot rescue thin prompt answers.

If your photos are all dim phone shots from the same two rooms, no ordering fixes that. If your written answers are one-liners any man could have written, a great lead photo only gets her as far as the disappointment. Get the photos and the answers right first. Then decide whether to let Hinge shuffle them or to set the order yourself.