Find photos by text in the photo - and other new features in 2019

Google Photos just keeps getting better at searching your photos. One of the recent new features is the ability to search for text that is found in the picture. 

Some photos found in searching for "welcome."

The pictures you see here are just a few of my photos that were found by searching for "welcome." 

Go ahead, give it a try:

• Just open Google Photos on your Android, iPhone, or photos.google.com on the Web
• Click on the search bar at the top and type  welcome  or any word you think will be found in your photos
• Press Enter on computer, or the checkmark or search button on mobile.
• Did it find any?

Google Photos 2019 - what else is new? Since my book, Mrs. Geek's Guide to Google Photos: second edition, was published in summer of 2018, I've been keeping a list of everything that has been added or changed. That will be the topic of our next What Does This Button Do? show. 

• What: Episode 179 of our YouTube show
  Google Photos 2019 - what's new?
• When: Live this Sunday, November 24, at 2pm Eastern
• How: just click below. If you watch while we're live, you'll be able to ask questions. If you watch later, you'll see the recording.

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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 Product Expert 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.

Resurface Old Memories with New Feature of Google Photos

Have you noticed a new set of icons at the top of your Google Photos app? That's called "Memories" and it's Google's way of saying - "Don't forget about your older photos, there's some good stuff here."
I take a lot of photos, all the time. My Google Photos account stores over 100,000 of them, so there is a lot of content for Google to re-surface in this new feature.
I have a bubble for 1 year ago, 2 years ago, and all the way thru to 15 years ago. You may not have a bubble for each year because it is looking for pictures from "this week" in each year. When you tap on a bubble, you get a slide show. There may be one photo, twenty photos, or any number in between, depending on how many photos Google found for this week in that year.

They're temporary

These are temporary albums, they aren't stored anywhere, they are just there for your browsing pleasure. Next week, they'll be different.
A cool feature is the ability to share. Let's say you click on 8 years ago and you see some wonderful old pictures of Jerry. There is a share button at the top of the screen so you can share directly from this memory rather than scrolling thru your library to find them.

Hide your unwanted memories

Maybe you'd rather not see photos of your ex-husband, or your ex-boss? There's a setting for that! In the main Google Photos screen, tap the 3-line menu, then Settings. You will see an option for Memories. Tap there and you'll have an option to turn memories completely off, you also can tap on People & pets and see all the faces in your library - tap on any that you want to hide.
You should also be able to hide selected dates on the same settings screen. On my devices, I see the Date option on my iPhone but not my Android.

For more info on this Memories feature, see the official Google Blog: Watch and manage your memories

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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.