Google Photos adds a quick sharing ‘favorite shortcut’ button on Pixel & other Android phones

Google Photos is enhancing its sharing capabilities with the introduction of a ‘favorite shortcut.’ This feature aims to streamline the process of sharing photos with the people you cherish most.

When enabled, the favorite shortcut allows you to designate a specific individual as your preferred recipient. This designated recipient will then appear first within the Google Photos sharing menu.

Here’s how you can select a person as a ‘favorite shortcut’ in Google Photos if you have this feature:

1. Navigate to Library
2. Then go to Utilities
3. There you will see a ‘Add favorite shortcut’ option, open it.



4. Now you can select your favorite person.

Subsequently, whenever you long-press on an image within the main feed/grid to access the sharing menu, your chosen recipient will be positioned front-and-center within the ‘Send’ carousel. To further distinguish this favorite recipient, their icon will have a subtle heart symbol in the bottom-right corner.

However, it’s worth mentioning that the prominence of the favorite shortcut might be slightly diminished on devices running Android 14. This is because Android 14 introduces its own native share sheet, which may take precedence in certain situations.

Google Photos had a similar feature called ‘Add partner account,’ where you can add another user and they will receive the photos you’ve chosen to share as soon as they’re backed up. Once they accepted your invitation, they could also share their photos with you using the same feature. These were the parameters you can set:

• All photos: You can share all photos.
• Photos of specific people: You can select one or more face groups to share. Photos that match any of the selected face groups will be shared.
• Only show photos since this day: Any photos whose dates come after the selected date will be shared.

It’s important to note that the favorite shortcut prioritizes the full, uncompressed quality of the photo during sharing. This stands in contrast to other sharing methods that might compress the image file, potentially compromising its resolution and visual fidelity.

The favorite shortcut system is designed for simplicity and ease of use. While only one favorite person can be designated at a time, modifying this selection is a straightforward process. Users can access the Settings menu and navigate to Sharing > favorite shortcut to remove the current favorite or select a new one.

The favorite shortcut feature is currently rolling out with Google Photos version 6.76 on some Android devices (we don’t have it yet). As of now, its not available for iOS users as per our internal testing.

Inline image source: 9to5Google