Adding and Removing Photos from Albums

Album View in Google Photos

I take lots of photos. If I'm in a beautiful area I may take 1-2,000 in a month. I love them all and I don't want to delete any, (that's work) but I do want to be able to find and show just my best (that's fun.)

That's what Albums are for.

Develop your own Album "system."

When I'm browsing my photos and I see one that is particularly good, I want to add it to an appropriate album. We are traveling and taking pictures all the time, so I've developed a system where I make an album for each month. I name it starting with 4 digits for the year, then a dash and 2 digits for the month. That makes them easy to search. I start an album at the beginning of the month and add photos as I go. If I want to see my best photos from July 2018, I just search for 2018-07. I also make albums for specific events.

To add a photo to an album

1. Open the photo on my phone
2. Tap the 3-dot menu in the upper right
3. Choose Add to Album
4. Scroll down the list and tap the appropriate album (note: once you have a lot of albums, you may need to scroll a ways. Albums are in date order by the most recent photo in the album. Once you've added one photo, that album will show up at the top as a Recent album the next time.)

To remove a photo from an album

If you're looking at an album and you decide that a given photo or video does not belong there:

1. Select or open the photo and tap the 3-dot menu in upper right
2. Choose Remove from Album
3.  When prompted to confirm, tap "Remove"

If you change your mind, you can always find that photo in your Google Photos library and add it back. 

Albums are our one organizing tool

Once you have your best photos in named albums, you can use the albums to share with friends. You can also create printed books from the album photos. I make albums primarily for myself, just so I can easily find my best photos from any given month or occasion. Unfortunately there is no way to sort albums yet. There is also no way to categorize albums, for example by work or travel. Hopefully these are features that will be added sometime. 

I just click on the Album tab in my Google Photos app and I can scroll to an album I want, or if I don't see it right away, I can search. As soon as you start typing a search term, the top Autocomplete suggestions will be albums, if you have any matches. Get familiar with the icon that signifies album:

To learn more, see Chapter 7 in Mrs. Geek's Guide to Google Photos. Also try going to GeeksOnTour.com and use the search feature at the top right to search for albums. You will find a wealth of material there! Some is free, some is for members only.

If you've never used albums before - start now! 

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Chris Guld is President and Teacher-in-Chief at GeeksOnTour.com. She has been in computer training and support since 1983. She is now a Top Contributor for the Google Photos Forum, owner of the LearnGooglePhotos.com blog, and author of Mrs. Geek's Guide to Google Photos. 
She loves to teach! If you want to learn, you’ve come to the right place.