At the Google I/O 2017 developer conference, it was announced that the Google Photos app now had over 500 million monthly active users. With the unlimited storage options it offers, users have been backing up almost 1.2 billion photos and videos per day, every day. To cater to the needs of its customers, Google announced a number of new features that will now allow social sharing using AI technology.
The three main new features that are being introduced are Suggested Sharing, Photo Books, and Shared Libraries. All three of these features simplify the process of sharing photos with your friends and family and allows you to freely share memories with one other at the tap of a button!
However, we’re here to talk about Google Photos’ newest feature, which is expected to draw more users to the app with the others in the coming months is the Archive feature. With this, you can now remove photos from your main Photos tab and hide them, without deleting them.
Until recently, it was very difficult to hide your photos on your smartphone. This only eased up with Samsung’s Secure Folder app and Apple’s option to hide content from your general Photos tab.
The Google Photos feature has already started rolling out to a number of phones. Users who have it will be able to see a new option above Trash that says Archive. There is a tutorial for the first time you use it and it is easily available from the overflow menu of any picture.
All you have to do is open or long press a photo, tap the menu button that is on the top right, and select “Archive”.
Archived pictures will still show in the app’s photo albums as well as search results. There is also the option to archive photos in bulk — this can be found in the top right corner. From this, users can also un-archive any picture they choose to.
The biggest advantage of archiving is that you can hide photos such as near identical takes, duplicates, screenshots, or simply pictures that you don’t want others to see as they scroll through your main Photos.
This feature is currently live only on the Android app for Google Photos and is expected to roll out to the web and iOS versions soon. It is live on devices that have version 2.15 of the app installed.
