The Android photo picker now shows photos stored in the cloud too

Android 13 introduced a privacy-focused photo picker – instead of granting apps full access to your gallery, it let you select only a few photos (and/or videos) which would be made available to the app. This only worked with files stored locally on your phone, however.

Now Google has introduced an update that lets you select files stored on the cloud just as easily. Here’s how that works:

This gives you seamless access to photos and videos you have uploaded from other devices. An alternative use case is to move photos and videos to the cloud to free up your phone’s storage.

Right now Google Photos is the only cloud platform that works with the updated photo picker. However, other cloud services can use the official API to add support as well. There is one important limitation, however. Right now only cloud services nominated by phone manufacturers can become cloud provides for the photo picker. Each manufacturer can nominate up to three services and can choose which one will be selected by default.

Choosing a cloud store provider

The new cloud feature is rolling out with the February Google System Update for phones running Android 12 and newer.

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