Picking photos just got easier as Google Photos joins Android's Photo Picker party

A long-awaited update to the Android Photo Picker is brewing, promising seamless integration with your favorite cloud storage apps like Google Photos.

Remember the new Photo Picker introduced in Android 13? It let apps grab just the photos you chose, without snooping around your whole library. But it had a glaring miss: cloud-stored treasures like your Google Photos haven’t been part of the party. This, however, is about to change in the near future.

According to Android Authority, Google is cooking up an update that’ll let you integrate your favorite cloud storage apps, like Google Photos, right into the Photo Picker. This means seamless photo sharing from the cloud, without handing over your entire library keys.

The Android Photo Picker is reportedly undergoing a transformation to include support for a ‘Cloud media app’ option. This feature enables users to designate a specific app on their device, such as Google Photos, to display its library directly within the Photo Picker. Google had previously alluded to this development, but the full functionality is yet to be activated.

Although the exact timeline for the release of this update remains uncertain, users can manually enable support for Google Photos in the Photo Picker, and this feature appears to function seamlessly on Pixel devices running the latest Android 14 version. While currently only spotted for Google Photos, the option seems flexible enough to support other cloud storage apps in the future.

The imminent integration of cloud media apps into the Picker is poised to streamline the process of pulling images from Google Photos into Android apps, promising a more efficient and user-friendly experience for users.