Google Photos aims to bring Memories to every Android home screen

Last year, Google added the Memories feature to Google Photos. It’s a cool way to show you important photos from years past, recent highlights, moments with your loved ones, your favorite activities, and also remind you of the carefree, quarantine-free days of old.

Google is using machine learning to decide what goes in Memories, and it’s pretty clever. The AI can discern visual patterns, colors, recurring shapes and then show you all the times you’ve climbed that peak or curate all the birthday photos of you and your kid.

iPhone users got a special widget back in October that cycles through Memories right on the home screen, but an Android version of this feature was nowhere to be found. Now the guys at XDA Developers have spotted lines of code in Version 5.49 of the Google Photos app that suggest an Android widget is on its way.

The code suggests that Android users will be able to show Memories from 1 year ago directly on their home screen. It is quite possible, though that the widget will work the same way as its iOS counterpart - allowing people to cycle through all their Moments directly from the home screen.

It seems that the widget is still under development and not currently available in version 5.49 of Google Photos but there are indications that Android users will get it sooner rather than later. Stay tuned and keep your Google Photos app up to date.