Google Photos is testing a powerful new feature that helps you enjoy and share your best content, but not everyone has it yet.
Google is bringing a powerful new feature to Google Photos
As spotted on Reddit, some users are finding a new ‘Snippets’ feature appearing in the Google Photos app.
Snippets are short sections of video automatically snipped from longer clips and bear the description “created from your original videos to help you focus on your best video moments”, according to a report by Android Police.
If this concept sounds familiar, then you may be remembering Google’s ill-fated “Google Clips” autonomous camera which used machine learning to determine the best moments to capture based on recognizing the people and pets who matter to you.
Google Photos can now automatically create 'snippet's featuring the best moments from you saved ... [+]
Snippets are likely created using similar technology but based on existing video content from your Google Photos library rather than using a separate external camera to constantly capture video. So far, snippets seem to feature people and pets heavily, which points to a similar selection process to the one favored by Google Clips when choosing the best content for you.
Snippets aren’t yet available for everyone, but those who do have access to them will probably see a new snippets category listed alongside Google’s other automatically generated ‘Creations’ near the bottom of the screen when searching. Some users don’t see this option but are still able to search for snippets manually.
You can search for snippets directly from the search bar.
Unless you’re already created a snippet, searching for one will, predictably, return no results. However, some users have begun to receive some snippets alongside their regular Google Photos highlights, along with the ability to save them just like any other highlight.
Google Photos gives you the option to save any of the snippets it creates for you.
The results so far seem a little hit and miss, sometimes successfully identifying key moments within a video clip, but other times selecting clips seemingly at random. However, when it does get it right, the Google's automatic selections can be surprisingly good. It would be very time-consuming, to seek out these special moments yourself and create the clips manually.
Few of us have the time to watch all the way through long video clips regularly so, assuming snippets work as intended, we can look forward to re-living our most interesting and important moments surfacing in a much more easily-digestible form in the future.
Follow @paul_monckton on Instagram
