Jimmy Westenberg / Android Authority
TL;DR
- Google Photos is getting the new album cover design that aligns with Material 3 Expressive.
- The redesign enhances album cover visibility and makes the title more prominent with a larger font.
- We’re also seeing changes to the menu options for albums
In recent months, we have seen several signs of Google’s latest Material 3 Expressive design philosophy scattered around the Photos app. These instances include a refreshed homepage, new icons and progress bar, and a noticeably improved photo editor. Now, we’re seeing another significant change, which aligns with what Google highlighted as a key change as part of the Material 3 Expressive showcase earlier this year.
Google has begun testing Material 3 Expressive design language in Google Photos. These changes were first previewed as part of the general announcement at Google I/O 2025 back in May.
We’re starting to see the changes get reflected in the Photos app, starting with version 7.45. These changes are still under wraps, but we were able to toggle them on with some internal tweaks.
One of the most significant changes we’re looking at is the overhauled album view. The changes here include improved typography in album covers, which now use a bigger, bolder, and centrally aligned font for the title. This is definitely an upgrade over the existing interface, which displays the album title in the bottom left corner.
While showcasing these changes, Google also teased text wrapping around subjects in the album cover, although that feature is not yet available in our case. That is likely because the feature still hasn’t reached a point of completion.
Another small change is with the album cover now occupying more space at the top of the app and leaving less space than the current version that’s live.
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In addition to changes to the album cover title, Google is changing the three-dot overflow menu. The options for “Play highlights” and “Cast” are now being added to this menu. Notably, the Play highlights button is also still present on the top right of the album cover.
The sorting option (symbolized by up and down arrows) has vanished from the main album UI and now only appears in the album editing interface. Previously, it was also available right next to the Cast button above the album cover. Furthermore, the comments button has been moved to the floating bar at the bottom.
We must stress that these changes have not been finalized and might change over the coming weeks or months, leading up to the final release. When that happens, we will ensure notifying you of the final changes.
⚠️ An APK teardown helps predict features that may arrive on a service in the future based on work-in-progress code. However, it is possible that such predicted features may not make it to a public release.
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