Google has taken to its official Google Photos Twitter handle to tweet about a new update rolling out this week, bringing a new “Favorites” feature that should make finding photos easy. According to the announcement, the feature works similarly to how marking an important email in Gmail or a favorite location in Google Maps does. Users simply need to navigate to an image and then mark the star icon associated with it. That’s located on the top right-hand side of the screen in the mobile app, just between the cast and three-dot hamburger menu. The images a user has marked will appear in a brand new section of the app’s home screen, aptly called Favorites. The rollout is expected to last throughout the week, so nobody should be too concerned if they haven’t seen the update yet. Users on Android can navigate to the Google Play Store’s “My Apps” section to check manually for the new software.
Presumably, a similar U.I. will be rolled out to the web version of Google Photos at some point, as well. In that case, it might not make sense for Google to completely rework the site to match up with the mobile app. However, it’s not unlikely that Google will include the Favorites section in the menu located on the top-left hand side of the screen. The star icon itself will most likely occupy a similar position in both web and app versions. Meanwhile, tapping that star for the second time probably removes a given photo from Favorites, streamlining the whole process.
The addition of the new feature actually makes quite a lot of sense for this particular app. After all, Google announced free unlimited storage way back in 2015 for photos and videos that are compressed to 16-megapixels and 1080p, respectively. Moreover, since the company is making a decent amount of headway with updates to its pricing and storage options, users are using Photos more than ever. That’s helped along by the fact that Android devices can automatically backup a user’s photos as they are taken. The new feature is intended to make finding a user’s favorite images and memories among the thousands of shots taken a much less daunting task. For all intents and purposes, this feature serves as a huge step forward in that regard.