Google Photos could soon add enhanced image search filters

Damien Wilde | Apr 15 2021 - 2:05 am PT

As much as we love Google Photos and the features it brings, the search feature could do with some extra tweaks. Sure, you can search for people, pets, places, and that is great, but it looks like Google Photos could soon save that hassle with enhanced search filters or image tags.

It’s worth noting that we simply don’t know if or when these enhanced search filters could arrive in Google Photos, but they were unearthed by Jane Manchun Wong, showing that there is at least some work going into the option. When using the search field, it looks like we may soon be able to toggle a wider “Filters” field that will let you dial down into options such as “Selfies,” “Videos,” and “Motion Photos.”

There might even be the option to view any Archived images quickly using these potential search filters. The benefit here is that you could search for a specific location and then toggle all selfies or videos taken at that place, saving time scrolling if you happen to have multiple photos/videos to sift through. Effectively, this simply expands upon the powerful text search features already in Google Photos.

Not many people know that you can be ridiculously specific when searching for an image in your library. The addition of search filters that you can toggle will make managing or at least traversing large Google Photos libraries a little faster if you want something specific but can’t quite figure out what text to enter to pull up the right content.

At this stage, we simply don’t know if or when these options might come to a stable build of Google Photos. This is simply evidence that work is ongoing, but it’s impossible to know if it will ever see the light of day. That said, it would streamline searching for many Google Photos users out there we’re sure.