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Google Photos jumps into the live wallpaper game to showcase your memories

New shots can now be enjoyed as fresh backgrounds on Android.
By
December 3, 2020
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Jimmy Westenberg / Android Authority
TL;DR
  • Google Photos is adding a new live wallpaper option with its latest Android update.
  • The feature cycles through saved images on the phone’s home screen.

Google Photos is a great backup tool for all your captured moments, but often those moments lie dormant until you actively revisit them. Now, the app is giving users the option to turn those old shots into wallpapers.

As spotted by XDA, Google Photos 5.22 is introducing a new option to your phone’s background selector on Android. Labeled as “Memories,” the option cycles stored images through the phone’s home screen.

At present, the feature is rather rudimentary. There’s no way to choose which images or folders are displayed as wallpapers, nor can users adjust how often the image switches. The wallpapers you see will be from your backups but will ultimately be decided by Google’s AI.

It’s simple, but for some, the addition might just be enough to convince them to keep Google Photos on their devices. Google announced in November that it will no longer allow users to backup unlimited images for free – a move that has been criticized by our readers. The feature may just be a bit too basic at present to justify its use. That said, if you happen to own an old Android device, it could be a nifty way to transform it into an old digital photo frame.

Read more: The best Google Photos alternatives

If a bevy of options is important to you though, there are plenty of other excellent live wallpaper apps with more settings to tweak.

It’s unclear when or if the Memories wallpaper feature will hit iOS, but users can install the latest version of Google Photos by hitting the button below.