Google Photos could soon let you download multiple photos to your phone
Edgar Cervantes / Android Authority
TL;DR
- Google Photos is testing a new feature that allows you to download multiple images and videos in bulk to your Android device.
- This feature was present on the web version of Google Photos, but not on the Android app.
- Currently in development in the Android app, the feature will skip already-downloaded files and provide progress notifications.
Google Photos is an excellent photo and video backup solution for Android flagships. Once you have it set up, you can just let the app do its thing in the background, uploading a copy of all of your clicked photos and videos to the cloud for easy access. However, a pain point that has plagued users for years has been the inability to bulk download multiple photos back to their Android device. It seems Google has finally listened to feedback, as we’ve spotted clues that indicate Google Photos could let users download multiple photos simultaneously to their device.
An APK teardown helps predict features that may arrive on a service in the future based on work-in-progress code. However, it is possible that such predicted features may not make it to a public release.
Currently, you can upload multiple photos and videos to Google Photos, and even do so automatically. However, if you switch your device without transferring photos locally, you are stuck downloading your media from Google Photos to your device one at a time. Most people usually bulk select their photos on the web version of Google Photos and then transfer them to their device, or make peace with their fate and let their media exist only in the cloud.
Google Photos v7.26 includes code that suggests Google is working on the ability to let users download multiple photos from their main photo feed. We managed to activate the feature to give you an early look:
Google Photos already lets you select multiple photos by either individually tapping on each, holding onto a photo and dragging down to automatically select the photos, or even tapping on the round select button across the date header to select all media under the date. Once multiple images are selected, the Download button vanishes. However, this will change in the future, and the Download button will remain present even when multiple images and videos are selected.
The first time you tap on the Download button after selecting multiple photos, Google Photos will display a warning about mobile data usage. After you go past the warning, the download will start. You will also be able to see the download progress through a notification.
If you try to bulk download a photo that already exists on your device, Google Photos will skip downloading the image and download the rest of your content. This is a good measure that will help avoid duplicates on your device.
As good as the option to bulk download multiple images would be, it has room to improve. Even though users will be able to select multiple photos, there’s currently no button to select all images if they want to download their entire library to their device. Further, an option to delay downloads till the phone connects to an unmetered Wi-Fi connection would also be appreciated. Since the feature is a work in progress, we hope Google considers these improvements, too.
The ability to bulk download multiple photos from Google Photos to your device is currently not live. We don’t know if and when the feature will be available to users in the stable branch. Given the utility, we do hope to see it released soon.
