Google Photos might finally fix its most annoying search problem

Google Photos is great at what it does…for the most part. A lot of Google’s changes to the app are well-intentioned, but sometimes, users prefer the older way of doing things. One such change is Ask Photos, an AI-powered search feature intended to help people find content with natural language queries. Most users prefer the classic search experience in Google Photos, but many don’t realize they can double-tap the “Ask” button to switch to it. Google could soon improve the situation by giving users one more toggle to switch between the two search experiences.

Within Google Photos 7.61.0.860908034, we spotted code that enables another option to toggle between the classic in-app search experience and the Ask Photos search experience. We managed to enable the toggle and other new UI bits to give you an early look.

Right now, when users search for something using the “Ask Photos” feature, it shows a bottom sheet with text related to the search, as shown in the first screenshot below. In the future, Google Photos may not show the bottom sheet, showing the text at the top, along with the upvote and downvote buttons, as you can see in the second screenshot below. Only the search bar will remain at the bottom for follow-up questions.

Eagle-eyed readers would have spotted the new “Ask Photos” toggle icon on the top left of the new UI. The toggle was turned on, and accordingly, Google Photos presented the Ask Photos experience when searching for media.

When the toggle is turned off, Google Photos will present the classic search experience. Google Photos will also remember your toggle choice, so you don’t have to worry about toggling Ask Photos off every time you want to search.

If you have turned off Ask Photos via the toggle and search for something that returns no results in the classic search experience, Google Photos will automatically expand the search with Ask Photos. In such a case, you will see results from Ask Photos, which is neat, since even the classic search experience can be imperfect at times.

With the new toggle, Google would have largely addressed most recurring complaints from Photos’ users. The previous toggle wasn’t easy to locate, while this upcoming toggle will be. The toggle choice will persist, so users wouldn’t have to toggle between the two search experiences on every search query, unless they actually want to. And when the classic search experience is insufficient, Ask Photos will save the day automatically.

This new UI with the Ask Photos toggle is not currently live, nor has Google officially announced it. We’ll keep you updated when we learn more.