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Google Photos can now be used as a Progressive Web App

With Progressive Web Apps (PWAs), developers can build the full functionality of an application into a web page. Google’s latest service to receive this treatment is Photos.

First spotted by Kenneth on Twitter (see tweet below), when you visit photos.google.com on your phone, you should see a more feature-rich experience. And after visiting the site on your desktop, you can add the PWA to your computer.

Since Chrome 57 on Android, you have been able to add Progress Web Apps to your handset’s home screen using an option found in the browser’s menu. This adds a shortcut to the phone’s app drawer that lets the PWA look and feel just like the version that can be installed from the Play Store. And now, with Chrome 67, you can do the same thing using the Chrome browser on your desktop.

As AndroidPolice notes, some users are still having a hard time seeing the Progressive Web App option on the desktop. If this is the case for you, you’ll need to copy and paste chrome://flags/#enable-desktop-pwas into the browser’s uni-bar, manually enable the feature, and relaunch Chrome.

Unfortunately, the Google Photos PWA doesn’t offer everything found in the full app. For example, you won’t be able to access any of your images while offline and you won’t receive any sort of notifications.


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Avatar for Justin Duino Justin Duino

I’m a writer for 9to5Google with a background in IT and Android development. Follow me on Twitter to read my ramblings about tech and email me at justin@jaduino.com. Tips are always welcome.