Google Photos adds private messaging feature to let you easily share photos

You no longer need to create a shared album on Google Photos as the app now allows you to send the photo to another Google contact and chat with them

FILE PHOTO: An illuminated Google logo is seen inside an office building in Zurich, Switzerland December 5, 2018. REUTERS/Arnd Wiegmann (REUTERS)

Google has added a new private messaging feature to its Google Photos to help you easily share photos with your contacts. The new feature will be available to both the app and the web version of the service. The roll-out for iOS and Android users will start next week.

So, what exactly is this new feature?

Google Photos has been quite a handy repository for all pictures on your device. It is particularly great because you have not have to worry about storage space or backups especially after Google relaunched Google Photos in 2015 adding free online storage.

However, the only way to share Google Photos content was through a tiresome process of creating a shared album. Even if it was a single photo, you would have to create a shared album and send the link to the person/persons you want to share it with.

Now, with the new feature, you can share a photo or photos with contact or multiple contacts through a one-off message. All that the other person needs to have is Google Photos installed on their device. The process is identical to how you would share a photo on Instagram or Snapchat.

If you want to keep conversing, like a comment on the photo or react to a photo you have received, you can go ahead and do that as well - the use case is identical to how you communicate on other social platforms. The main idea seems to be about making a photo a starting point of a conversation like it is on Facebook, Twitter, etc.

How do you do it?

When you want to share a picture, you click on the share widget and you will get an option to share it on Google Photos alongside the other share options you currently get (like WhatsApp, Twitter, Instagram etc). From there you can pick the contact/contacts you want to share it with and get going.

You can share a picture or a video with as many people as you like and continue or start a conversation. All your older chats will be found from the share tab as well.

"This feature isn't designed to replace any chat apps you already use, but we do hope it improves sharing memories with your friends and family in Google Photos," Google Photos' Product Manager Janvi Shah explained in her blog post.

The best part of this new feature is perhaps the fact that you can share photos without compromising on the quality and it also turns Google Photos into a more social app which in turn could mean more users.