Google Photos ‘Memories’ will soon give your browser’s New Tab Page a shot of nostalgia

Now that Chrome has officially rolled out its New Tab Page module for quick access to recently opened Drive Files, that space is no longer sacred. Before, it was just a spot for a search bar, a nice wallpaper, and a few recently visited websites. The company has made it clear that it has intentions to populate it with useful tools and modules moving forward though.

Recently, Chrome Canary users gained the ability to enable NTP cards for Recipes, Shopping and Discounts, Files, Tasks, and Safe Browsing. A module was also created for Photos, but it didn’t really do anything or appear at the time if its flag was enabled. Now, Chrome Story has discovered that the purpose of this card is to show the user their ‘On this day’ or past photo memories.

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NTP Photos Module

Shows the Google Photos module on the New Tab Page – Mac, Windows, Linux, Chrome OS

#ntp-photos-module

If you use Google Photos on your phone, you’ll recall that these are items at the top of your screen that let you look back on photos you snapped of people, places, and things on the same day or week only one to several years prior. It can be a fun way of reminiscing, and they give you a great sense of nostalgia, especially if you’re a parent.

It’s worth reminding you that should you absolutely despise these new tab page modules, you can simply turn them off using our quick tutorial. I do see value in having information placed before our eyes in more places, so long as it makes sense in the places it’s been plugged in. I just hope that the developers don’t get too excited with the NTP and clutter it. After all, there’s a reason why iGoogle didn’t last.

As with all Canary features, they take a while to bleed into Beta and Stable Chrome OS, but if this sounds appealing to you, then you probably won’t have to wait too long. With Android 12 and its redesign of the system widgets, Google Photos Memories can now appear on your phone screen without the need for opening the app.

I love this, as opening my phone is now the new ‘opening my wallet to see a picture of my son’ type of thing. The fact that Chrome and Chrome OS are slowly being brought into the fold and gaining feature parity with Android to provide users with a more seamless experience is excellent, and I say it’s long overdue.