Album sharing in Google Photos gets a much-needed update

Google Photos has been a great tool for sharing photos with my friends and family during the pandemic. It is perfect for those more personal family photos that you don’t really want to share on social media. A photo is worth a thousand words and can help us continue to feel connected even when we can’t see each other in person, which explains why Google Photos has seen a 50 percent increase in shared photos in some regions. To help people share multiple photos more easily, Google has announced a new way to share albums in Google Photos. 

Last December, Google launched direct sharing – which drastically improved the sharing functionality – and now albums have received the same treatment. When you go to share an album, the default option will now be to share with a specific person or multiple people using their Google account. The shared albums don’t create the same style of ongoing thread that was launched with direct sharing, but you can click the chat icon in the top right to add comments.

When you share an album with someone, it will show up in their ‘Sharing’ tab, where they can add photos or save individual photos from that album to their Google Photos account. You can also click the three-dot menu in the top right corner and select ‘Show in albums’ to make this shared album appear in your ‘Albums’ tab. The photos are not saved to your account, so if you want a photo saved you will need to click the ‘Save photos’ button at the top of the album. Or you can select the photos you want to save and then click the cloud icon in the top right. 

You can still create a link to share photos with someone who doesn’t have Google Photos or a Google account and you have the option to turn link sharing on or off at any time. If you don’t want others adding to the Album, you can click the three-dot menu in the top right of the album, select ‘Options’ and then turn off the ‘Collaborate’ toggle. You can also remove a user altogether, which will also remove the photos and videos they have added to the album. 

Although some of the settings are still a little confusing, this album sharing update has made it much easier to multiple photos and makes it create an on-going, private thread with friends and family. The update has started rolling out this week and should be available for all users.

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