Avast ye scurvy dogs! Be ye plagued by a cluttered Google Photos? Fret not, mateys! This Android treasure be yer savior!
2024-01-23
Avast ye, mateys! Google Photos be finally gettin' a long-promised treasure called 'Photo stacks' on Android – here be how it works, arrr!
In a language reminiscent of 17th-century pirates, Google is finally rolling out a feature called 'Photo stacks' on Android to help tidy up Google Photos libraries. 'Photo stacks' automatically groups similar photos together, making it easier to organize and navigate through your library. The feature combines photos taken at a similar time and selects a 'top pick' photo to represent the stack. A number in the top-right corner indicates how many photos are in the stack.The roll-out of Photo stacks is random and is pushed out as a server-side update rather than an Android app update. So, it might not be available for all users yet. To increase your chances of getting the feature, update to the latest version of the Android Google Photos app and ensure the backup feature is turned on. Once the overlay card appears in the app, you can enable Photo stacks.
To turn on Photo stacks, you can also go to the Photos tab in the Android app, tap the three dots in the top-right corner, and toggle 'Stack similar photos'. Once you have stacked photos, you can manage them by selecting the 'top pick' cover image to view all the photos in the stack. You can edit the stack by selecting one of the photos and choosing options such as 'Set as top pick', 'Remove from stack', or 'Keep 1, delete the rest'. Additional images can be added to the stack as well.
Despite the usefulness of this feature for organizing and eliminating duplicates in Google Photos libraries, it is disappointing that Google took so long to roll it out on Android. The random nature of the roll-out makes it difficult to know when users will receive it. However, if you regularly use Google Photos, be on the lookout for this feature.