I finally made Google Photos less annoying with these tweaks

Google Photos is easily the most feature-rich gallery app on Android. I love using it, but it can sometimes feel like too much. There’s a certain kind of fatigue that comes from seeing all those creations you never asked for or notifications nagging you to print your photos. Google Photos is guilty of all of that, and more.

Don’t get me wrong — the app itself is great at what it does. But by default, it tries to do a lot more than just show you your photos. I got tired of it, so I went through its settings and turned off everything I didn’t want. It took a few minutes, but it made the app way less annoying.

Google Photos loves pinging about things most people don’t care about. I’m talking about those memory notifications that show up at random hours. Sure, the memory feature is useful when you’re simply browsing the app and want to go back in time, but a notification? That’s a distraction.

Printing notifications are even more pointless. That’s just Google nudging you to order prints of your photos. It honestly feels more like an ad dressed up as a notification. Even if you do order prints occasionally, you can do that without Google Photos reminding you constantly.

Both of these alerts are easy to kill. Tap your profile icon in Photos, go to Photos settings > Notifications and turn off the toggles for Time-based memories, Themed memories, Printing promotions, Print drafts, and Prints for you.

I love Google Photos’ Create tab. It now offers tools for making collages, highlight videos, animations, and video remixes. Those are all so good that I barely use any third-party photo editing apps anymore. Still, I’m not a fan of Google Photos creating these things automatically without asking. I’d often come across collages made from random photos or a highlight video that makes no sense.

I get the idea — Google is trying to promote these features using my own photos so it feels personal, but they’re still unnecessary. Thankfully, you can shut this off too. Head to Photos settings > Preferences > Creations and disable the toggles for Animations, Cinematics, Collages, Color pops, and Stylised photos. You can still create these things manually, of course.

This has to be the most annoying thing about Google Photos. Every time you share a photo, it throws a Quick Edit screen where you can crop and enhance the photo with a single tap. This can be useful at times, but those are rare. Most of the time, it just adds an extra step while sharing something.

If you feel the same, head to Photos settings > Sharing and turn off the Quick edit before sharing toggle. You can still edit a photo manually before sharing, so you’re not giving anything up.

This one can be subjective, but I don’t like how Google Photos autoplays videos and motion photos anytime I’m browsing the gallery. They play without sound, of course, but they’re still distracting. And when there are multiple videos in a row, Google Photos plays them in sequence, so you might not even get to preview the one you actually want. So yes, this is one more thing I like to turn off.

To do the same, head to Photos settings > Preferences > Photo grid playback and turn off Videos and Motion photos toggles. You’ll now only see static thumbnails while browsing, which feels a lot cleaner.

Gemini is now a part of Google Photos, and its Ask Photos feature makes finding things genuinely convenient. You can simply describe what you’re looking for — “find photos of my kid’s birthday celebrations” or “find photos of me at the beach” — and it pulls them up. Heck, you can even ask it to remember specific things for you.

The only catch here is that Google can access and review your queries to improve the feature. Google says these things aren’t tied to your account and that it takes the necessary steps to protect user privacy. Still, this makes me uneasy every time I ask Gemini to find something in Photos. The good thing is that you can opt out without losing access to any Gemini features.

Head to Photos settings > Preferences > Gemini features in Photos and turn off Allow us to access your queries. You can also review and delete your Ask Photos activity from the same menu using the View and manage your activity option.

By default, Google Photos shows most things in the main Photos tab, which makes sense, but that can also sometimes include useless stuff, like screenshots you took or a random meme you received on WhatsApp. All these things can make your gallery look cluttered. The good news is that there’s a simple toggle that can clean that up.

Google Photos can hide things like screenshots, GIFs, and memes from the main view once they’re backed up. Head to Photos settings > Preferences > Photos view and turn on Hide clutter from other apps. Another option is to tap Customize by app and hide content only from specific apps. Once you do, you’ll have a timeline that only shows things you actually care about. And you can still find photos and videos from other apps under the Collections tab.

Google Photos has a lot going for it, but if you find it overwhelming at times, the above tweaks should definitely help. Is there any specific Google Photos feature you can’t stand? If so, do share it in the comments below.