Google launches Gallery Go, a lightweight Photos app that works offline

Damien Wilde | Jul 24 2019 - 4:33 am PT

Google has officially launched another “lite” app for a popular full-fat option in the form of Gallery Go. The photo app offers many of the best Google Photos features available to emerging markets in a slimmed-down package.

Gallery Go was announced at the Google for Nigeria event, with a particular focus on offline usage. The app is clearly designed to complement the Android Go platform — which is an ultra-lightweight OS made for sub-$100 devices in growing or emerging markets.

Weighing in at just 10MB, Gallery Go still manages to pack in many of the familiar Google Photos features including auto photo organization, editing tools, and even automatically enhanced photos. It manages all of this with a filesize that is exponentially smaller than Google Photos.

This app is aimed more at first-time smartphone owners that lack access to high-speed internet connections or potentially a desktop backup solution. Another major bonus is that Gallery Go also works with micro SD cards, for which support is more prevalent on lower-end devices. The smaller filesize also ensures that the most space available is allocated for images and not the app itself.

The app is available worldwide to all devices that run Android 8.1 Oreo or higher — which does feel like a little oversight for emerging markets. The app is also set to come pre-installed as the default gallery app on the Itel S15 and A55 smartphones in Nigeria beginning next month.

If you’d like to give Gallery Go a trial run, you can download it from the Google Play Store.