Google Photos is one of my most-used apps, but I have to admit I don’t love everything about it. When an app tries to do as much as Google Photos does, there’s bound to be things that annoy you. Thankfully, most of these things can be simply disabled.
The features highlighted in this list are for the Google Photos mobile apps on Android and iPhone, not the desktop web app. Some of the features are exclusive to Android.
Added last year, the “Quick Edit” feature adds an extra step when sharing a photo from the Google Photos app. Google assumes you’ll want to do some tweaks before sharing, so it takes you to a minimal version of the editing screen when you tap the “Share” button. If you’re like me and you edit photos before sharing, it’s an annoying screen to skip every time. Get rid of it by going to Photos settings > Sharing > Quick edit before sharing. Just toggle it off.
Clutter from photos from other apps
It’s easy to forget that, at the core, Google Photos is just a gallery app. Photos and videos that you save on your phone will appear in Google Photos—sometimes in the main timeline. If you’d like to clean things up, there are two options. First, you can go to Photos settings > Preferences > Photos view and turn off “Show content from other apps” entirely. If that’s too extreme, leave it toggled on and tap “Customize by app” on the same screen. Select an app and choose how it appears in the timeline (if at all).
This only applies to Google Pixel phones.
Seeing people in Memories you don’t want to see
A big part of the Google Photos experience is “Memories,” which are shown at the top of the main tab. You wouldn’t be alone if you have photos of someone you’d rather not see anymore. The good news is you can easily prevent people and pets from showing up in Memories. Navigate to Photos settings > Preferences > Memories > Hide people & pets. From here, select people or pets in the “Blocked” section. While you’re there, you can choose people and pets to “Show more” or “Show less” as well.
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Being reminded of days you don’t want to relive
If your memories are soured by specific times rather than specific people, you can also hide photos from those dates. Once again, go to Photos settings > Preferences > Memories; this time select “Hide dates.” You’ll be able to choose single dates or large chunks of time—even years. Photos or videos that were taken on your selected dates and ranges will no longer appear in Memories.
Google printing service ads
Google Photos has an integrated printing service, and there’s a good chance you learned about it against your will. There are frequent notifications about discounts to try to sell more photo books and prints. You can find the switch to disable these at Photos settings > Notifications. There’s a section with three different types of printing notifications to disable: “Printing promotions,” “Printing drafts,” and “Prints for you.”
Notification options will not appear if you have notifications disabled for Google Photos entirely.
Videos auto-play on the timeline
The last one is a little thing, but you may still find it annoying. By default, Google Photos plays videos and motion photos on the timeline as you scroll—like Instagram. This can be easily turned off at Photos settings > Preferences > Photo grid playback. Less distracting, and you’ll save a bit of mobile data in the process.
Google Photos hasn’t seen as much feature creep and unwanted AI features as other Google products, but it’s still pretty bloated. The days of it being a basic gallery app are long gone, for better or worse. Take a few minutes to disable some of the fluff, and you’ll enjoy it even more.
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