Ahead of Ask Photos this summer, Google has removed the “Things” carousel from the Search tab in Photos for Android and iOS.
Previously, you’d find four carousels in the Google Photos Search tab. After People & pets, Places, and Documents, “Things” rounded out this page.
This would group together related photos, like Selfies, Skylines, Concerts, Airplanes, Cars, Forests, Parks, Skyscrapers, Food, Christmas, Piers, Monuments, Golf, Flowers, Halloween, and much more. In my library, I have 83 categories. You got a subset (18) in the carousel with the ability to “View all.”
In recent days, the Things carousel has disappeared entirely from the Search page.
Old vs. new
That being said, you can still access the categories by searching “Things” in the app. This will take you to the old full-page grid. It’s a small removal in the grand scheme, but Things was nice for passive browsing/scrolling.
It also makes the Search tab feel a bit empty, with Your Activity (Favorites + Recently Added) and Categories (Screenshots + Videos) rounding out the page.
More broadly, Search looks to be replaced by “Ask” (Photos) in the near future, though what Google shared at I/O 2024 isn’t the final UI. For example, Google still shows a “Library” tab instead of the “Collections” revamp that’s being tested.
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