26 Facts About Google Photos

Google Photos is a photo sharing and storage service developed by Google.

The computer vision of Google Photos recognizes faces, grouping similar ones together ; geographic landmarks ; and subject matter, including birthdays, buildings, animals, food, and more.

Different forms of machine learning in the Google Photos service allow recognition of photo contents, automatically generate albums, animate similar photos into quick videos, surface past memories at significant times, and improve the quality of photos and videos.

In May 2017, Google announced several updates to Google Photos, including reminders for and suggested sharing of photos, shared photo libraries between two users, and physical albums.

Google Photos automatically suggested collections based on face, location, trip, or other distinction.

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Google Photos received critical acclaim after its decoupling from Google+ in 2015.

Google Photos is the standalone successor to the photo features previously embedded in Google+, the company's social network.

Google Photos launched the social network to compete with Facebook, but the service never became as popular as Facebook for social networking and photo sharing.

Google Photos+ offered photo storage and organizational tools that surpassed Facebook's in power, though Google Photos+ lacked the user base to use it.

On February 12,2016, Google Photos announced that the Picasa desktop application would be discontinued on March 15,2016, followed by the closure of the Picasa Web Albums service on May 1,2016.

In June 2016, Google updated Photos to include automatically generated albums.

Later that month, Google added a "Deep blue" slider feature that lets users change the color and saturation of skies, without degrading image quality or inadvertently changing colors of other objects or elements in photos.

In February 2017, Google updated the "Albums" tab on the Android app to include three separate sections; one for the phone's camera roll, with different views for sorting options ; another for photos taken inside other apps; and a third for the actual photo albums.

Towards the end of the month, Google introduced an "Archive" feature that lets users hide photos from the main timeline view without deleting them.

In September 2019, Google Photos introduced a new social media-like feature called "Memories" similar to the Stories feature in Instagram and Facebook which highlights past photos to give their users a nostalgic feeling.

On June 25,2020, Google Photos introduced a major redesign to the mobile and web apps, accompanied by a new, simplified logo.

In November 2020, Google Photos announced that it would be ending its offering of free unlimited storage for photos uploaded in "high quality" or "express quality" starting on June 1,2021, due to rising demand for storage.

In May 2016, one year after the release of Google Photos, Google announced the service had over 200 million monthly active users.

At the May 2015 release of Google Photos, reviewers wrote that the service was among the best of its kind.

Sarah Mitroff and Lynn La of CNET wrote that the service's phone and tablet apps were particularly good, and that Google Photos had a more streamlined design than Yahoo's Flickr and more organizing features than Apple's iCloud photo service.

Kastrenakes described the service's May 2015 release as evidence that Google Photos was spinning out the "best features" of its Google Photos+ social network.

Google Photos stated that the Photos service was "always excellent", and liked that users would be able to use the service "without signing up for a new social network".

Google Photos was surprised that a search for "boats" found both Cape Cod fishing boats and Venetian gondolas, but noted errors such as a professional photograph registering as a screenshot.

Google Photos was particularly concerned about Google's motivation for building the service, the company's relationships with existing governments, and potential laws that would require Google to provide a user's entire history of photos upon request.

Google Photos criticized the service's sync functions, and preferred folders of images over an unsorted "flat database".

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Google Photos ultimately suggested that users instead use a portable hard drive, which he considered safer and cheap.