Android’s Photo Picker Gets Google Photos Integration

The newest version of the Android photo picker is more secure and looks prettier, while offering a more consistent way to attach media into apps. We’ve had it for a little over a year now, so many of you have gotten used to it and also probably found one if its biggest limitations.

The Android photo picker used to only show your on-device or local media. Because of that limit, you could only choose from photos or videos stored on your device and not the massive library you may have in Google Photos that has grown from device to device. That should soon change.

Google announced today that the Android photo picker has a new cloud photos feature that will allow your chosen cloud media app to present media for sharing in apps. To start, Google Photos is the only option, but Google is open to other cloud media apps that qualify for a pilot program and want to get in on the action.

Should this rollout (it is with the February Google System update for Android 12 and above) to your device, there will be a “Cloud media settings” setting that lets you choose your preferred media app. Again, it’ll only be Google Photos for now. Google also says that it will “attempt to auto-select” the preferred app at first.

Once integrated and you go to choose media from the photo picker, your cloud media app (Google Photos) will add options into your Albums tab. From there, you should find things like favorites or specific albums, which could be an album for a trip you took (see above).

A nice addition, right?