What you need to know
- Google is adding advanced search filters to the Photos app.
- When this update hits your device, you'll be able to refine your search by people, locations, or image type.
- It's a server-side update, so it's not tied to any particular app build yet.
Google Photos already uses Google's powerful AI to upgrade your photos, suggest edits, and catalog them for easier searching. In the future, Google will make search more powerful and make some of the advanced searching capabilities of the app more explicit.
Google is rolling out new search filters on the Android Google Photos app for some users (spotted via Android Police.) If you're in this group when running a search in Photos, you'll now be offered new rows of various filters, allowing you to whittle down your search by person, location, image type, and more.
Again, Google Photos was already pretty good at search. You could type something like "summer barbecue with Steve", and have a picture of your friend Steve flipping a burger in a park. The problem was that you just needed to know you could do that, and sometimes it would fail because your friend Steve was wearing sunglasses and got confused for a separate other person that day. These new filters will minimize doubt. It'll also be handy for finding photos featuring people who aren't properly labeled yet.
Google Photos remains one of Google's best services, and one of the best ways of saving images captured by the best Android phones. The company recently stopped its unlimited free photo storage offerings this year, instead, giving users the option of signing up to Google One to purchase more storage. The subscription would also include advanced editing tools for Photos (alongside Google One's usual perks). It may not be completely free anymore, but little features like this make it worth it to keep using Photos especially for those who've built up a large photo library.
Google Photos
Google Photos is one of Google's best services. It may not be completely free for users to back up their personal photos, but it provides enough value to be worth the additional $1.99 a month.
