A few years ago, Android introduced a built-in photo picker that lets you choose specifically which of your images a given app has access to. Prior to this change, uploading an image to an app like Instagram required giving that app access to your entire on-device image library — which wasn’t a great design from a privacy standpoint.
Now, that privacy-enhancing photo picker is getting even better. As reported by Android Authority, Google’s rolling out a new search function that helps you more quickly find the image you’re looking for. It’s also reading date scrubber that makes it quicker to scroll through your images in the photo picker interface.
Writing for Android Authority, Mishaal Rahman says he’s received reports that the photo picker’s search functionality is starting to go live already. Once your device receives the update, you’ll see a search bar in the photo picker interface, sitting above the Photos and Collections buttons. It seems like this search function works like Google Photos’ traditional, non-AI search function, letting you quickly find images of specific people or certain scenes.
A date scrubber is in the works, too
Rahman also highlights that Google’s cooking up a date scrubber for the photo picker, pointing to a Google code commit dated March. There aren’t any images of this in-progress feature in action, but it’s easy to imagine: it’ll likely take the form of a handle that appears on the right edge of your screen when scrolling through your photo library. You’ll be able to press and hold on that handle, then drag it to quickly scroll through your images.
According to Rahman’s tipsters, the new photo picker search functionality is rolling out right now. It’s not clear when we should expect to see the date scrubber in the wild.
