Google confirms its fix for broken Photos' drag-to-select is on the way

When you want to quickly select multiple pictures in your gallery, Google Photos has a handy feature that lets you drag to select all the pictures you want. It’s far more convenient than having to select multiple images one at a time, especially if you plan on selecting a lot of photos. This feature inexplicably disappeared recently for a large number of users, but it should be back soon.

If you’re unaware of what’s going on, here’s a quick overview. Dozens of Google Photos users, including members of our own team, have been reporting that drag-to-select stopped working for them in recent days. When they would attempt to activate the feature by long-pressing on a photo, dragging their finger across the screen would only cause the screen to scroll up or down. While tapping and holding enabled multi-select, these users could only select multiple images one by one. This bug has been spotted on multiple models of Google Pixel, Samsung Galaxy, and OnePlus phones.

There was concern that Google may have intentionally removed the feature. However, the fact that the feature was still available on other up-to-date devices suggested that this was simply a glitch. After reaching out to Google for comment, the company has now confirmed to Android Authority that this is the case. According to a Google spokesperson, a fix is rolling out for this problem.

So, if you’re one of the people impacted by this bug, you can rest easy knowing that the problem won’t persist for much longer.