Google Photos

Google Photos new Memories revamp w/ vertical swipe gesture begins rolling out

Damien Wilde | Sep 26 2022 - 3:06 am PT

The recently announced Memories revamp with added vertical swipe gesture is now beginning to roll out more widely in Google Photos on Android.

This is the first major change to the look and feel of the story-like section found along a top carousel of the Google Photos app on mobile and desktop since it was introduced back in 2019. With these changes, the Memories section now has a cleaner aesthetic and smoother vertical scroll gesture for switching between the AI-generated image and video flipbooks.

The Memories category title font has been updated to be bolder with the photo details now in the bottom-left with subtitle and location details where available. There’s a visible “X” that allows you to quickly exit given that a vertical swipe now shifts between Memories rather than exiting back to your main Google Photos library view.

You may also notice a subtle zoom effect that creates an almost parallax look with certain imagery. Google also confirmed that background instrumental music is also coming with a further rollout of this feature sometime in October. At this stage, we’re only seeing the UI and vertical scroll gesture enhancements within the Google Photos application on Android:

Another new addition that is available or rolling out is the new Shared Memories option, which lets you send any image collection with friends and family. This simply creates a link that you can share with a contact or application of your choice rather than downloading each individual image or video and sending those in succession.

We’re not yet seeing the updated collage editor that Google has detailed in their original announcement post. That said, it could come with those further enhancements expected for the popular AI-powered story creations within the next few weeks.