I love Google Photos, but I wish it had these 8 missing features

I don’t just use Google Photos; I have over 50,000 photos on my app and Google’s servers. I’ve been a loyal user since day one, and I trust it to keep all the memories of my life and my best photos (along with my NAS for backup). But the more I use it, the more I notice how Google Photos isn’t perfect. Despite how much I like the app, there are still features I wish would make the experience more complete. Here are some of them.

One of the most important features I wish Google Photos implemented is a full application for Google TV. I know I can cast photos and videos from my phone or computer to my TV, but it’s not exactly seamless. There are occasional hiccups and glitches with casting, and it only lets me experience part of the Google TV app. I also know I can set my photos as a screensaver on my TV, but once again, that’s only part of the experience.

Ideally, a native Google Photos app on Google TV would allow me to browse my photos and albums directly on the TV. No need for phone in my hand. I’ll be able to show photos and play videos, browse grouped people or places, view my memories, and even search or ask Gemini questions about my photos to find the perfect photo. A native app would be faster than casting and would allow me to use my physical Google TV remote without looking down at my phone the whole time.

Google Photos currently stores similar photos together, but that’s the extent of its help in finding similar shots or duplicates. I wish there was a more robust system that would let me filter by only complete duplicates – there was a time when the Photos bug came in and some photos were uploaded twice, so I would like to reclaim that space without having to go through them manually. Another benefit would be the ability to view photo stacks specifically, instead of trying to view my entire library to view the stack. This way, I can also find similar photos and try to clean up the ones I don’t want as much as possible.

At present, there is no such thing. I have to manually go from photo to photo, search through the piles, and try to see if I want to delete them. As far as actual duplicates go, forget it. The pictures do not point to them.

Search is one of my favorite features of Photos. I can easily say something like, “I’m in Slovenia at night by a lake,” and find a night shot I took in Bled without having to remember the exact city name. However, there are more variables that Google can and should add to its search feature. With growing libraries of photographs, these have become essential for finding needles in haystacks.

For example, I’d love to find photos that don’t have a location specified, so I can go in and add it where it matters. The same goes for photos that don’t have a time – for example, I play a lot of escape games and send photos taken by other phones and cameras with no date attached, and it would be nice to go in and tag them with the correct time.

I’d also like Photos to help me filter out photos that aren’t in an album, so I can see if I missed tagging some shots or categorize them better. The same applies to photos that do not contain anonymous faces. Instead of going through one by one and seeing if a face is tagged or not, I would like to only see photos where Photos recognized a face but couldn’t put a name to it. This way, I can go through them quickly.

And finally, it will also be necessary for me to search in albums and search in shared albums and shared libraries. I share my entire library with my husband, and he always has to manually scroll through hundreds of photos to find that potting soil branded photo we looked at a few weeks ago.

In general, Google Photos is pretty good at detecting faces in a photo, even if it can’t identify them right away. In those cases, it allows you to assign a name and face to that person. All good. The problem is in all the other instances where photos don’t recognize a face at all, even if there is a face.

I love taking photos of places my husband hangs out, and although technically, there’s no “face” in these photos, just a back, I’d love to be able to tag them under his name. Sometimes, Photos is smart enough to recognize that it’s a human being and even directly assigns the photo, but most of the times, it doesn’t even give me the option to add it manually. No face detected means there is no way to add a face. The photo should correct this mistake.

I love capturing motion photos on my Pixel phone, and looking back at all the fun little clips surrounding the moment of capture of the still photo. However, most of the times, there is nothing of note, and just because my hand moved a little bit, my Pixel decides to take a motion photo. The issue is that these are large files that take up precious storage space compared to a simple still image. To go back to a normal photo, you have to export the motion picture to a photo and then delete the original file. And you have to do it one by one. This is disappointing and ineffective.

I’m glad Google Photos added the option to batch select motion pictures and convert them into still photos, without having to browse and click one by one, and manually delete the originals afterward. Make it a seamless process, and it’ll save us a lot of time – and space.

I’m a proponent of straight photos and perfect angles, so whenever I have to take a slightly skewed image due to angle or distance restrictions, I try to adjust it as much as possible. Photos had a nice perspective adjustment tool on mobile, it was removed when the new photo editor came out, then it was brought back. But it was nowhere to be found on the web version of the photo. And this is exactly the kind of tool that would make more sense to use with a precision mouse than with a big, dirty finger.

Google Photos currently only lets you control the connectivity requirements of a backup, but not the battery requirements. You can choose whether photos are backed up over Wi-Fi or data network, limit data used, block it while roaming, and disable video backup over data. This is all good, but you have no control over other variables of your phone’s condition.

Importantly, I would like to be able to limit backups to when my battery is low, or when my phone is not charging. I face this a lot when I’m travelling. When I find a good Wi-Fi network, I connect, enable my Pixel’s VPN, and I suddenly see that Google Photos is immediately running its backup. What if it’s still morning and I don’t want to waste half my battery for backup? I just wish I had a control to limit large backups to when my phone is charging – that way, I’ll know I won’t lose battery on them.

Google Photos’ video editor has gotten pretty good recently and can do this job in a jiffy. Cropping, color adjustments, trimming, audio controls, speed variations, text additions; Lots of bases covered. But with everyone living their lives online and sharing shorts and reels, I want photos to adopt that level of editing, too.

Adding automatic captions would be a great start, and Google certainly has the requirements to make this very easily accomplished. I’m sure the on-device Gemini can live-caption any video in your library in less than a minute. I would also love to see the option to add an opening thumbnail or end-credits photo, as well as a mid-video still with animation. It would also be great to cut the video into segments, zoom in on some places and zoom out on some places, or merge multiple videos together.

I realize this is a big ask for a photo gallery app that focuses first and foremost on organizing your library, but maybe the Photos team could release it as a helpful addition or a separate app. With CapCut being at least as user-friendly, it would make sense for Photos to take over and run with it, becoming the video editing application everyone gravitates towards.

How are you? What Google Photos features are you looking forward to or would like to see Google implement?