Google Photos is adding another feature intended to make your cherished memories more easily accessible and enjoyable. In addition to the recently expanded rollout of automatic Stacks (which organize similar photos together), Google has unveiled a new setting called “Activity-based personalization.” This powerful feature enhances the app’s “Memories” section.
The “Memories” section, which you might recognize as that carousel of photos and videos at the top of the Google Photos app, can now be set to learn from your actions within it. Activity-based personalization learns about the way you engage with Memories — those you linger on and those you may skip — and uses that information to make them more relevant.
Activity-based personalization is by default enabled, ensuring that you get the most out of Memories right away. However, you can easily disable this setting at any time. If you do, data about your Memories interactions from the last 18 months will be deleted. Don’t worry, though; this won’t affect your photo library, other Memories, or the Creations that Google Photos generates.
For now, it appears that setting can only be accessed from the web version of Google Photos, although it isn’t appearing for everyone yet. That said, the Memories carousel is present on both the web and mobile (Android and iOS) versions of the app, so whatever setting you choose for it will affect your experience throughout.
To check if the feature has rolled out to you and to tweak it, you’ll need to head to photos.google.com on your computer, then click on “Settings” at the top right of the page. From there, you’ll need to scroll down to the “Memories” sub-section to find the “Activity-based personalization” toggle, which should be grouped with the “Time-based memories” and “Themed memories” toggles for featured memories.
Google Photos is a great app for backing up and enjoying photos and videos, and this new feature joins a range of options already available to personalize your experience. It’s great to see that the app continues to get better and offer more options to those who choose it as the keeper of their previous memories.