Google Photos now uses an animated Material You carousel

Abner Li | May 8 2024 - 11:31 am PT

As teased last May, Google Photos for Android is now using the animated Material You carousel for Memories.

The main difference is how the center of the image is kept mostly visible as you scroll horizontally. Note the contraction/expansion as the images disappear/appear at the left and right edges.

In the old carousel, the shape of the card is static and just moves off screen. Meanwhile, these portrait cards at the top of the main Photos feed also have more rounded corners.

Google Photos opted to use a variant that “doesn’t alter the aspect ratio of the carousel items” — “This is a useful strategy when altering an item’s size could detract from its meaning – for example, a carousel of album covers might benefit from retaining a recognizable 1:1 aspect ratio.”

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Otherwise, this animated carousel in Material 3 sees images expand and shrink as you scroll through. You can see an example of that in the media carousel of the redesigned Google Messages contact Details page or the Pixel Launcher’s long-press wallpaper picker. Additionally, “carousel items move at a different speed than their content, creating a parallax effect.”

We’re seeing this Material You carousel rolled out with version 6.81 of Google Photos for Android.

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