Google Photos celebrates 10 years of wins and fails today

To mark the occasion, we're reflecting on a decade of cool features and frustrating changes from the Android mainstay.

May 28, 2025 - 23:10

Credit: Edgar Cervantes / Android Authority

Do you remember when you first realized what a great app Google Photos is? My moment was a few years ago. I needed my driver’s license details, but didn’t have the card on me. I had a vague recollection that I might have taken a photo of it years earlier, but I wasn’t even sure if that was the case, much less where I could find it.

Until then, I’d mostly thought of Google Photos as just a chronological dump of snapshots. After a bit of tapping about, I hit the Collections tab and noticed the Documents folder. I opened it, and had the image I needed a few seconds later. As nerdy as it sounds, that moment was an eye-opener for me, and I’ve relied on the app’s features ever since.