Now is your time to try the Google Photos video editor on a Chromebook

Just about a month ago, Google began rolling out the new video editor for Google Photos on Chromebooks, but it was only for certain accounts. And while that meant users like Gabriel here at Chrome Unboxed got a chance to check it out, it also meant that users like myself were left out of the loop. And while I understand this new tool isn’t the most powerful video editor ever devised, I still have been waiting to see it appear on my Chromebooks so I could give it a go.

The Google Photos video editor is here for everyone

A few days ago, however, the Google Photos video editor became available to everyone with a Google account and a Chromebook, so that means its time for you to try it out if you haven’t been able to thus far. Again, I’m not promising the moon and stars, here, but this little tool could be a handy and useful addtion for many to their overall Chromebook experience.

On the left side of the Google Photos app, you’ll now see a section called ‘Creations’ and when you click into it, you’ll see a list of animations, movies, etc. that you’ve made previously. At the bottom, it should have a button to create a new creation, and that’s where you’ll get started. You can begin with a themed setup or just start from scratch by hitting the ‘New movie’ button up top. At this point, you can choose stills or videos (or a combo of both) to add to the project, and then get to editing.

After all your media is loaded in, you can drag and drop each item in the timeline, add pan/zoom to stills, add filters, color adjustments and crops to both photos and videos, and then drop a soundtrack under it all to round out the project. It’s a simple take on putting together a video that could be exactly what you need in a quick-hit situation, and I think that is exactly what Google was after, here.

At the end of the day, this isn’t a tool to replace a full-blown editor like LumaFusion, but it does a pretty nice job of allowing you to cut and splice together a video with files you’ve already uploaded to Google Photos. For the simple stuff, that’s enough, and now it is out and available to anyone who wants to give it a go. And if that’s you, simply install Google Photos from the Play Store on your Chromebook and get to editing. There are surely ample numbers of YouTube Shorts, TikToks and Instagram Reels waiting to be created as we speak.