Google Photos' facial recognition is one of the most revered features and it's about to get better. While the feature previously allowed grouping people and pets across the entire library, users will soon be able to do the same inside albums.
A recent teardown of the latest Google Photos app version 7.96.0 by Android Authority first shed light on the feature. The hidden code strings in the app point to a dedicated "Filter photos by face" button.
It is explicitly designed for the album interface and could soon allow users to sort through their curated folders by selecting specific "People & pets", including a generic "Person" tag for unnamed faces.
The most useful aspect of this feature could be the ability to apply multiple face filters, just like the main library allows. The code reveals pluralised strings, suggesting that users can select a few different people or pets simultaneously.
The app will then isolate and display only the photographs within that album containing those specific subjects. This could solve a recurring issue with Albums in the Photos app, where users quite often struggle to find the photos they're looking for.
Finding a specific group shot inside a folder with hundreds of uploads could require tedious manual scrolling. While users can globally search for names in the main tab, executing this localised sorting directly inside an album could bring a massive quality-of-life upgrade.
While the feature has been spotted in Google Photos' code, there's no information about when it could potentially roll out. Considering Google is already testing it, we expect the feature to start hitting a few batches of users in a few weeks, followed by a wider rollout by the end of this year or Q1 2027. Until then, stay tuned.
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