At A Glance
- Faster Face Finding: Google Photos is testing a new feature that displays detected faces as thumbnails below your photos.
- Streamlined Navigation: This update could make it quicker and easier to find photos of the people you know.
- Testing Phase: The feature is currently in testing and may change before its official release.
Google Photos Improves Face Navigation
Google is testing a small but significant update to Google Photos changing how facial recognition is used in the mobile app. This new Google Photos feature, first discovered in a report by app investigator AssembleDebug for Android Authority, makes it easier to see who Google has identified in your photos without the need for additional taps and swipes to find this information.
The report finds an updated interface, hidden in the code for version 7.26 of the Google Photos Android app, that places a new row of detected faces as thumbnails at the bottom of the screen each time a photo is viewed.
The new face thumbnails lack name labels, so I suspect you’ll have to tap them individually to see more information about each detected person. As it stands, the feature doesn’t provide any additional information beyond the fact that Google Photos has found these people in your image.
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The feature isn’t yet live, so we don’t know exactly how Google will use it. Google could use the thumbnails to speed up finding more photos of the selected person, or perhaps for a different purpose, such as selecting individuals for editing. We’ll have to wait and see.
As it stands, the new row of face thumbnails takes up screen space often used by other interface elements, such as the buttons that appear when you need to select an individual image from a photo stack. Google will have to decide which controls it shows you based on context and the type of image you’re currently viewing.
Larger thumbnails and name labels remain available as face groups in the “People” section of the information tile (see below).
Google Photos — What Are Face Groups?
Google Photos uses facial recognition technology to automatically assemble photos of recognized people or pets into Face Groups. This makes it easy for you to search for a particular person or for Google Photos to generate its popular “Memories” highlights based on the people we know best.
You can see who Google Photos has detected in the photo you’re currently viewing by swiping upward to reveal a “People” section below. You can edit people’s names here by tapping on “Edit faces.”
Detected faces are visible only to you and aren’t shared with others when you share your photos.
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