Quick Links
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Make Your Search Even Quicker
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Share Photos With Your Partner
Unlike the gallery app on your smartphone, Google Photos offers a wide range of features, making it one of the best platforms for storing and editing photos and videos. Here, I’ll discuss some of the top Google Photos features you should be using.
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AI Enhance
I’m not a photo editing expert, so whenever I take a picture, I often feel unsure about which edits to apply to make it look more vibrant and appealing. To make this easier for me and many others who struggle with photo editing, Google has introduced an AI enhance mode in Google Photos.
To use this feature, select the photo you want to edit and tap the “Edit” button at the bottom of the window. Then, choose “AI Enhance” from the editing window that appears.
Google Photos will now use AI to generate a few suggestions, each slightly different from the others. For instance, one photo might appear more vibrant than the original, while another might be a zoomed-in or inverted version of it. Select the suggested version you prefer and tap the “Save as Copy” button at the top.
In case you want to edit the suggestions offered by the AI enhance feature, you can do that as well. In my testing, I have found that the feature tends to brighten the colors of most photos, so I always go to the lighting section and reduce the brightness of the AI‑suggested images.
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Quickly Find Your Photos
Finding a specific photo of someone can be a troublesome process, especially if you have thousands of images stored in Google Photos. However, you can use the tagging feature to make the entire process much easier.
On the Google Photos home screen, tap the “Collections” button at the bottom, then select “People & Pets” from the menu that appears. Choose the person you are looking for in the photo. For instance, if you are searching for a photo that includes yourself, select your image from the list. Google Photos will then display all photos that contain you.
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Make Your Search Even Quicker
While the tagging feature is great for searching photos, you can also use Google Photos’ dedicated search feature to quickly find an image. For instance, if you want to search for a dog photo, tap the search icon at the bottom-right corner of the Google Photos home screen, and type dog in the search bar. You can even paste a dog emoji. Google Photos will then display all the images containing a dog.
You can further narrow your search by adding additional details. For instance, you can search for something like a German Shepherd playing in a pool. Google Photos will then quickly show the relevant image.
If you live in the US, you can take advantage of the Ask Photos feature in Google Photos. This Gemini-powered feature not only makes searching for photos easier but also helps you get answers to questions you may have about your photos. For instance, you can use Ask Photos to determine which of the pictures in your gallery would look best as your phone wallpaper.
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Block or Hide Photos
If you are handing your smartphone to a friend and don’t want them to see photos of a particular person—perhaps your girlfriend—you can use the block feature in Google Photos.
To enable this feature, tap your profile icon in the top-right corner of the Google Photos app, then select “Phone Settings” from the menu that appears. Choose Preferences > Memories > Hide People & Pets. Then, tap the plus icon under the Blocked section, select a face from the list, and then tap “Done” at the top.
And that’s about it. You won’t see that person’s photo in Google Photos. They also won’t appear in any group photos or Google Photos memories.
If blocking a person in Google Photos seems too extreme of a decision, you also have the option to configure Google Photos to show a particular person’s photos less. For this, you need to tap the plus icon under the “Show Less” section and choose the person whose photos you want to see less often. Google Photos will then not show the selected person’s photos in its memories.
There’s also a “Show more” section that you can configure if you want to see a particular person’s photos more often in Google Photos memories. There’s a “Hide Dates” option as well, which you can configure to hide photos taken on a particular date.
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Share Photos With Your Partner
WhatsApp, Telegram, and the link-sharing feature of Google Photos itself—there are plenty of ways to share your photos with your partner. However, Google Photos also offers a sort of a share all feature that automatically shares every photo you add with a selected partner.
To set up this feature, go to the “Photo Settings” window, select “Sharing,” and then “Partner Sharing.” Choose the starting point and the type of photos you want to share. Then, choose the “Select Partner” button. Select a partner from the list that appears, and tap the “Confirm” button.
The selected person will receive a pop-up notification on their device, asking them to accept the sharing invitation. Once they accept, all of your Google Photos images will be shared with them.
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Bring Photos to Life
Google Photos comes with a photo-to-video capability, allowing you to convert still images into short videos. The feature is powered by Veo 2, and you can use it for various purposes, such as bringing an old selfie with your parents to life with subtle movement.
To use this feature, tap the “Create” button at the bottom of the Google Photos home screen and select “Photos to Videos.” Next, choose a photo from your gallery and select either the “Subtle Movements” or “I’m Feeling Lucky” option. Google Photos will then take a few seconds to generate and convert the photo into a 6‑second animated video.
At the time of writing, this feature is available only to users in the United States.
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Remix Your Photo
While AI models like ChatGPT and Gemini can be used for various purposes, users have recently been using them to convert images into different art styles such as the Ghibli art. For instance, I recently used ChatGPT to transform my image into an anime character.
Google took inspiration from this and introduced a remix feature that allows you to convert images into different cartoon art styles. This means you don’t need to visit a dedicated chatbot to transform your images.
To use this feature, tap the “Create New” option in Google Photos and choose “Remix.” Select the style in which you want to transform your photo. You can choose from 3D animation, anime, sketch, or comic book. Then, select your photo and tap “Generate.”
Google Photos will take a few seconds to generate the image. You can then save the generated image to your smartphone and even share it with your friends. This feature is currently available only to U.S. audiences, with no information on its global rollout at the time of writing.
These are some of the Google Photos features that you should know about. Interestingly, there are also a few smaller but noteworthy features, such as sharing photos using a QR code, organizing photos into different albums, and much more. Overall, the Google Photos app is a great alternative to your smartphone’s default gallery.
