I tested Google’s secret gallery app. Here’s how it beat Google Photos

Google Photo, undoubtedly, is one of Google’s best apps/services. This is the image of my choice, a library app, which has 10+ years of photos, videos, and random screenshots that I have collected after more than a decade. Make some excellent photo editing tools, this is one of the Google apps I don’t know what I will do.

However, this is not the only photo library app in Google’s portfolio.

As many people discovered this week, Google has a very alternative to photos. It is called the Google Gallery, and it is a very different app compared to Google Photos. Instead of displaying your entire Google Photo Library, the gallery app just shows locally stored photos on your phone. It also has many limited tools, no AI integration, and no cloud sync.

The Google Gallery, reasonably, is a much inferior app compared to Google Photos. So, then what’s a big deal? I installed the gallery on my Android phone to find out, and just a few minutes after its use, I got a great benefit on Google Photo.

From the design point of view, the Google Gallery is solid. It’s broken into two pages: photos and folders. The former shows an upside -down list of your photos, while the latter groups together through your respective folders (camera, screenshots, downloads, etc.). This is exactly what you expect, and it works well.

Here is an optional Dark theme, some basic edit tools (filters and crop), an automatic image enhancer, and… about it. What you get in Google Photo is much less to engage you, and if you have been covered only after you.

As much as I like simple design, my favorite thing about the gallery app is that it is primarily opposed to Google Photo.

Google Photo app is unusual for memories behind and scrolling through my years of library. That said, this device is not ideal to find files. This is technically possible through the collection page in the app, but nevertheless, you can only see pictures through the folders in which they are.

Because the gallery app works fully offline and not connected to your Google Account, you Only See locally -saved files on your phone. That way, whatever you see in the main photos are all things that are replacing valuable internal storage. And the sacred Molly, do I have a lot of pictures on my One Plus 13?

Since I use Google’s images exclusively as an and my only gallery app, I just do my time to clean and manage my time. I regularly delete photos/screenshots that I don’t want to be safe, which keeps my cloud library good and clean. However, this is not the case with my offline files. If I want, I can find them in Google Photos, but since they are hidden behind a few layers of different pages, they are out of sight and out of mind.

In a few minutes, the Google Gallery informed me of all the junk files that were saved on my One Plus 13 more than Google Photo. Between screenshots, between downloaded files, and photos saved from telegram, I have a garbage burden on my phone that is better than deleting. And, thanks to the Google Gallery, it was easier to find out.

Is Google Gallery, Google Photo change? Not even a little. However, as a photo partner, there is a lot to present to the gallery app. If you have estimated the storage of your phone, and you think the pictures are taking a good share of it, the Google Gallery is a great way to see what is on your phone. And even if you do not have to delete the goods, this is just a good, easy way to see your device’s photos-especially if you have an internet connection or weak.

Is there any reason not to use Google Gallery? One of them comes to mind. One, Fox Go is another offline gallery app that serves the general purpose like a Google Gallery. I didn’t use it, but my colleague Rita did, and she called the Fox Go The Free Photo Gallery app that she always wanted. If you are interested in this type of application, it is worth checking.

The second reason is that the future is not telling the future for the Google Gallery. It is a good place today and works great for what it is, but it also looks like an app that will already be in line whenever Google has the next killing of unwanted products.

The Google Gallery was first released in 2019 under the “Gallery Go”, when Google was still investing in its Android Go move. The last Go Edition Android update came when Google released Android 14 in 2023, and it is evident that in recent years Google has taken less and less interested in the entire “GO” project. This does not mean that the gallery app will end tomorrow, but I won’t be surprised if Google gets rid of it within the next or two years.

Still, if you like what you see with the Google Gallery and want to try it, keep it on it. The app is free to download, barely takes a space, and this is a great way to manage local photo storage of your phone. Just don’t be more connected.