Google Photos will get better inking, captions and account management soon

Google Photos grid view
Google Photos grid view (Image credit: Ara Wagoner / Android Central)

What you need to know

  • Google's engineers are working on adding support for inking and captions for its Photos application.
  • The app will likely also feature an account switcher in the search bar soon.
  • The changes were discovered thanks to prolific leaker Jane Manchun Wong.

Google Photos is soon going to get a nifty few features aimed at making editing and sharing your photos more fun and interactive.

Reverse-engineered code for the company's gallery and image backup app shows drawing and captioning your pictures will soon be possible from within the app (via Jane Manchun Wong). The images shared by Wong show a relatively sparse (compared to some other applications) drawing experience, with a selection of seven pen colors. It's not entirely apparent if Google will allow you to modify the stroke width, based on the images.

You can add a text overlay to images as well, presumably with the same options for color choice.

There might apparently also be a new account switcher integrated directly into the search bar at the top of the app à la Gmail. That'll save you the trouble of having to pull out the hamburger menu from the left edge to do the same.

The company has constantly been adding new features to the app in recent months. You can now create Instagram-like stories — dubbed 'Memories' by Google — from within the app and, through the power of AI, can also search for text within your images. Perhaps the most audacious of the bunch, Google is testing a feature that will automatically re-color black and white photos, though the results are still far from perfect.

How does Google's new Gallery Go compare to Google Photos?

Muhammad Jarir Kanji