Google Photos to reintroduce partner sharing feature that adds support for third-party apps

Google Photos

One of the many convenient features Google Photos introduced in the last decade is partner sharing, which allows you to easily share your library of images with other third-party apps. Since its launch in 2017, partner sharing allows Google Photos users to share their library of images with friends and family from other apps. Surprisingly, Google abruptly removed partner sharing in November 2024 and added a weird sharing limitation that only allowed users to share pictures and videos from the camera roll. Thankfully, this is about to change.

Google Photos brings back partner sharing feature: Key details

According to a new report by Android Authority in collaboration with Assemble Debug, Google might be ready to change its stance and reintroduce the option to share media files uploaded to Google Photos by other apps with the help of partner sharing. Further, the report mentions a new ‘Include content from other Android apps’ toggle in the latest Google Photos app for Android version 7.12 that allows you to share pictures and videos uploaded from other Android apps to your Google Photos library.

Currently, this feature is turned off by default and needs to be enabled from the Google Photos partner sharing settings page. This implies that Google Photos users won’t have to manually turn on ‘Include content from other Android apps toggle from the app settings to view third-party media files on the app interface.

Moreover, the new partner-sharing feature will likely be visible for users enrolled in the Google Photos beta channel, before a stable release in the next few months.