Google Photos received positive reviews after it was unlinked from Google+ in 2015. Critics praised the recognition technology, search, application, and loading time of the updated photo album service. However, privacy issues have been raised, including Google’s motivation for developing the service, its relationship with the government, and laws that may require Google to hand over the user’s complete photo history. Google Photos has been widely adopted by users. It reached 100 million users five months later, 200 million a year later, 500 million two years later, and broke the 1 billion user mark in 2019, four years after its first launch. Google reports that as of 2020, about 28 billion photos and videos are uploaded to the service every week, and the service stores more than 4 trillion photos in total.
Google just released a new feature in Google Photos that can help you hide sensitive pictures from snooping. The new locked folder is first available on Pixel devices and will be available on more Android devices later this year. The new locked folder allows you to store photos you don’t want anyone to see. The photos stored there are protected by your device’s screen lock password, and will not appear in the “Photos”, “Memories” grid, and will not be available to other applications that have access to your camera roll. One pixel to open Google Photos. Touch Library, Utilities, and Lock Folder. Tap Settings to lock the folder.
Next, use your fingerprint or PIN to unlock your device. If you don’t have a password yet, you need to create one first. On Pixel phones, you can save photos directly to a locked folder. Open the camera app, tap the photo library, and then tap the lock folder. If you keep the locked folder selected, all the photos you take will be stored there. If you want to move photos from the camera roll to a locked folder, select the photos you want to store there. In the upper right corner, click the more icon and select Move to locked folder.
Then click Move. Remember: if you keep storing these photos in the cloud, they will be deleted. Locked folders can keep your photos private on your device so that no one can see them. It is not clear whether Google plans to introduce this feature to Google Photos for iOS, although Apple has its own way to hide photos through hidden folders on the iPhone.
Google Photos is a photo storage and sharing service developed by Google. It was announced in May 2015 and separated from the company’s old social network Google+. Starting from June 1, 2021, in its free tier, any newly uploaded photos and videos will count towards the 15GB free storage quota shared by users. Google services,[4] in addition to the current Pixel phones. The previous free tier, unlimited photos and videos up to 16 megapixels and 1080p resolution respectively (any larger ones boil down to these sizes) ended on the same day.
The service automatically analyzes photos and recognizes various visual features and themes. Users can search for anything in photos, and the service returns results in three main categories: people, places, and things. Google Photos computer vision recognizes human faces (not only human faces but also pet faces), groups similar faces (due to privacy laws, this feature is only available in certain countries/regions) geographic landmarks (such as the Eiffel Tower), and themes, including birthdays, buildings, animals, food, etc.
