A teardown of the 2.16 build of Google Photos revealed some clues signaling that the Mountain View-based tech giant is preparing to update its popular photo management app with archiving suggestions, shared libraries, and a number of other features. Google already added the Archive functionality to its mobile tool in late May and is now seemingly looking to expand on that mechanic in the future by providing users with suggestions on which photos to archive. According to the newly uncovered code, the Alphabet-owned Internet company is working on a new card that will appear in the Assistant section of Google Photos and suggest images that should be archived. It’s currently unclear whether the feature will only recommend individual images or if it will also display entire albums and collections, though the code present in the latest build of the app indicates that users will always be able to revisit previous suggestions or completely turn off the functionality from the Settings menu of the app.
The latest version of Google Photos also contains more backend associated with Shared Libraries, a feature that Google already talked about at its Google I/O developer conference last month, though the firm has yet to officially launch it. The newly added code doesn’t reveal any new information about Shared Libraries, but it suggests that the functionality is close to being completed and may be rolled out with the next client-side update for Google Photos. The 2.16 build of the app also contains some hints pointing to a new Camera Shortcut that Google is apparently working on. According to the latest findings, the company is planning to ennoble the old shortcut with a number of new features, including the ability to archive, share, or edit photos immediately after taking them. It’s currently unclear in what manner will the new options be presented to the user, though more details on the matter should be available later this year once Google develops this feature further.
As always, there’s no guarantee that the functionalities suggested by the app’s code will ever go live as Google might opt to scrap them during development for a number of reasons. An update on the company’s Google Photos-related efforts will likely follow in the coming weeks.