Google Photos has added a mute toggle when watching videos in the app as reported by Android Police. This is another small UI change that comes after the big overhaul of the app earlier in Jun. This appears to be another useful tweak from Google, alongside the ability to no longer have social media pictures backed up on your device.
This change is nothing outrageous or groundbreaking but simply a little tweak that users will find quite useful.
The change allows users to quickly toggle their volume when watching videos in Google Photos. This means they no longer have to trawl to find their device’s volume should they wish to.
How does it work?
When playing a video in Google Photos, users will now see a new volume/mute switch. This is located next to the time scrubber at the bottom right-hand corner of the screen. Simply tap it and volume will mute and tap again and it will return.
This is quite a simple addition but a useful one. It allows you to change the volume of a video without having to access your phone’s volume.
This is great if, for example, you accidentally play a video in public and want to quickly mute the sound to avoid embarrassment.
As mentioned, this is hardly a groundbreaking switch as it is a feature that many apps and sites currently possess. However, it is nonetheless a good move from Google. Hopefully, this means we might see this feature come to YouTube sometime in the future as well.
Google Photos Mute Toggle server side roll out
The new feature is currently rolling out server-side. At the moment not everyone appears to have the new feature. It is not yet linked to the new UI.
However, some users have the old UI and it is working for them. There does not appear to be any pattern or method of how to acquire this feature right now.
As of right now, it appears users are going to have to wait to receive this feature. There is no reason why this should not happen in the near future.
It is also worth noting that this feature is no the same as muting audio in edited videos to export them without sound. This was an announced new feature that has yet to be rolled out. However, these two features are not synonymous.
Overall, this is a simple but useful tweak from Google. Hopefully, it will not take too long for it to roll out across all devices and users. If this does happen then we can all look at this as a nice easy and simple win for the company.