Google now offers two first-party photo apps for Android: the feature-rich Photos and a stripped-down Gallery app. According to Engadget, Gallery is a pared-down option for people who don't need Photos' cloud backup or AI-powered editing tools. The two apps are not mutually exclusive; users can download Gallery from Google Play and keep both installed, choosing one or the other as needed.
The most significant difference is backup. Photos can automatically upload images to the cloud, while Gallery cannot. Engadget notes that older personal Google accounts include 15GB of free storage, but accounts created on or after March 9, 2026 start with only 5GB, with an extra 10GB available after verifying a phone number. Storage is shared across Gmail, Drive, WhatsApp, and Photos, and users can pay for Google One plans starting at $2 per month for 100GB or $3 for 200GB.
Editing tools also separate the two. Gallery offers only rotate, crop, and a handful of filters, whereas Photos includes brightness, contrast, highlights, shadows, blur, sharpening, and one-tap skin smoothing. Engadget advises that Photos is the better choice for regular editors, while Gallery suffices for occasional cropping. Both apps support sharing to social media and messaging apps, and both permanently delete images moved to Trash after 30 days, including cloud backups. For users who prefer not to rely on cloud storage, an external USB-C drive is another option mentioned in the report.