Google Photos is preparing a new feature similar to a photo and video diary for friends
Newly found code in Google Photos suggests the platform will soon introduce a weekly photo highlight reel known as My Week that can be shared with contacts.
Evidence of the upcoming feature was discovered by techblog DeSpAndroid after diving deep into the files of Google Photos version 6.69. There they discovered strings containing text descriptions explaining how the update might work. According to their findings, users can select multiple photos to form a My Week highlight reel. They can then invite contacts to their account so they can enjoy recently taken photos.
TheSpAndroid explains that this is similar to how regular albums currently work on Google Photos. However, My Week distinguishes itself by being on the homepage. Invitees don’t have to browse through multiple folders to find the source. Android Authority, who also discovered the same code sequences, confirms this view. They believe that My Week allows contacts to “stay informed about your life” by automatically sending photos every week. Users can choose what they want to send to their contacts.
There is some debate about how exactly the highlights are shown. TheSpAndroid admits that it’s not certain whether images will be in a “memories carousel” (think Instagram Stories) or in a separate Memories tab.
Collect photos in real time
In addition to My Week, TheSpAndroid found evidence of another feature called real-time albums.
The string of code suggests that Google Photos will recommend placing images taken during an event or trip into one of these albums while you’re still traveling. That way you don’t have to remember to do this after the event is over. It will save you a lot of time and effort. The report states that once an event is over, you can tell the platform to stop uploading it to a real-time album, which implies that Google Photos is automatically collecting images.
Take the information here with a grain of salt. As Android Authority notes, “there’s no guarantee” that any of these features will see the light of day. It just means Google is working on something. It is possible to enable the flags corresponding to MyWeek and the real-time albums, but these do nothing.
The tech giant has been working on improving organization tools on Google Photos. Who among us doesn’t have an unmanageable mess in our accounts? Very recently, the company introduced Photo Stacks, giving the platform the ability to automatically group images into the same groups. A few months ago, a new creation tool was added to merge clips into a one-minute highlight video. My Week appears to be the next step in Google’s photo organization efforts.
Speaking of photography, check out Ny Breaking’s round-up of the best camera phones for 2024.