Release notes

AI-generated Key Takeaways

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• Google Photos Library API enables management of photos & videos, with key changes effective March 31, 2025, focusing on app-created content.

• The API introduces features like a new Picker API for photo selection, enhanced sharing controls, and options for sorting search results.

• Updates include increased upload file size, support for new content categories in filters, and client library enhancements for Java and PHP.

• Resolved issues address various bugs, including video thumbnail overlays, missing properties in responses, and upload errors.

• Developers should review the acceptable use policy and updates page for details on data usage, advertising guidelines, and API changes.

Subscribe to these release notes.

This page is updated with each new release of the Google Photos APIs. The changelog lists releases by date and includes any new features, bug fixes and other changes.

The documentation and guides point to the latest version to use.

April 1, 2025

Notes

This release implements the previously announced changes to the Photos APIs.

• Removal of some scopes from the Library API.
• Restriction of several methods to only work with app created content.
• The new Photos API User Data and Developer Policy takes effect in place of the old Acceptable Use Policy.

For complete details read Updates to the Google Photos APIs.

September 16, 2024

Features

• Introduced the new Picker API for secure and user-friendly photo selection.

Notes

This release we announced key changes to the Library API (effective March 31, 2025).

• The Library API will only manage photos and videos created by your app.
• Removal of photoslibrary.readonly, photoslibrary.sharing, and photoslibrary scopes.
• Restriction of several methods to app-created content only.

Complete details are posed in the Updates to the Google Photos APIs page.

October 27, 2022

Notes

• The "Build a Photo Sharing app with Google Photos and Flutter" codelab is no longer available. Review our other samples and refer to the sample code within our guides.

June 1, 2022

Notes

• Added best practices for uploading to help clarify the upload process, call out common errors and how to avoid them, and provide tips for improving upload efficiency.

October 27, 2021

Features

• Google Photos Partner Program: launch of the premier tier. The premier tier is a suite of enhanced API features that leverage the powerful machine intelligence of Google photos.

September 29, 2021

Features

• New option to sort date filter based searches . Results can be sorted newest first or oldest first. This allows for easier searching and improves efficiencies by providing better targeted search results.

July 21, 2021

Features

• New -no parameter for video base URLs to load thumbnails without a playback button overlay. By default video thumbnails load with a playback button overlay. This new parameter gives you control to hide the playback button on video thumbnails.

Resolved issues

• Issue 181282432: Video thumbnails always displayed with a playback button overlay.

May 25, 2021

Resolved issues

• exposureTime property was not populated for photo metadata in media items.

May 19, 2021

Notes

• The base URL documentation for motion photos has been updated to clarify the behaviour of the =dv parameter for Android motion photos and iOS Live Photos.

February 11, 2021

Notes

• The Acceptable Use Policy has been updated, adding content on advertising and minimizing data use.

July 7, 2020

Features

• The API has been updated to support new sharing controls in Google Photos. A new field, isJoinable, is now returned as part of the shareInfo property for shared albums. The API can join users to a shared album when isJoinable is true. If an owner has disabled link sharing on an album in Google Photos, isJoinable will be false, and the API will not be able to join users to that album.
• Issues 111405623, 116379853, 117685011: You can now change album titles and cover photos, and change descriptions for media items your app has created. Request the new photoslibrary.edit.appcreateddata authorization scope for update access.

February 17, 2020

Features

• The maximum upload file size of a photo has been increased from 75 MB to 200 MB.
• When you upload files, a MIME type must now be specified in the byte upload stage.
• You now specify filenames when creating a media item, instead of when uploading media bytes. The new fileName property in simpleMediaItem supports UTF-8 strings. You can still specify a media item's filename when uploading media bytes, however we strongly recommend updating your implementation.

Notes

• The Acceptable Use Policy has been updated, with some extra details focusing on minimizing data use and storage.
• The base URL documentation has been updated to include motion photos.

August 16, 2019

Features

• Issue 131874809: New property isOwned in shareInfo to identify if the user is the owner of the shared album. More details are available in the share media developer guide.

Resolved issues

• Issue 131711405: shareableUrl property was missing in the albums.list response.
• Issue 113870729: mediaItems.list sometimes returned duplicate media items at page boundaries.
• Issue 93428763: The status field for video metadata now correctly returns the VideoProcessingStatus of the highest quality video available.

June 12, 2019

Features

• Issue 110188560: New search filter to select media items that have been marked as favorite: FeatureFilter.
• New content categories for the ContentFilter to filter media items that match specific categories: ARTS, CRAFTS, FASHION, HOUSES, GARDENS, FLOWERS, HOLIDAYS.

Notes

• Updated UX Guidelines that provide additional guidance for naming projects and albums.

May 7, 2019

Codelabs

• New Codelab: Build a Photo Sharing app with Google Photos and Flutter. Learn how to build a photo sharing app using the Google Photos Library API in Flutter. See the samples guide for details.

April 29, 2019

Features

• Issue 109505022: New calls to add and remove existing media items to an album:

  • albums.batchAddMediaItems
  • albums.batchRemoveMediaItems

  These calls support media items and albums that have been created by your application. More details are available in the manage albums developer guide.

• The REST call for creating media items mediaItems.batchCreate now returns HTTP status 207 MULTI-STATUS for partial success if some media items could not be created. More details are available in the Uploading media developer guide.

Notes

• The latest versions of the client libraries include a breaking change. Classes related to MediaItem, Album and DateRange have moved to a new dedicated package. Their functionality has not changed, only their location in the client library. Refer to the release notes for the Java client library (1.2.0) and PHP client library (1.2.0).

February 14, 2019

Notes

• A new quota limit for accessing media bytes from base URLs applies. You can monitor this quota in the Google API Console.

Resolved issues

• Issue 124355983: 500 errors when calling mediaItems.get for some shared media items.

January 21, 2019

Resolved issues

• Issue 121998358: isWriteable property was missing in the albums.create response.

January 7, 2019

Resolved issues

• Issue 118464845: mediaItems.list returned too many empty pages.
• Issue 111714379: mediaItems.search returned half the pageSize.

November 30, 2018

Features

• New call mediaItems.batchGet to retrieve multiple media items by their identifiers.
• Issue 111279349: New call sharedAlbums.leave to leave a joined album.
• Issue 111279347: New call albums.unshare to mark a shared album as private.

Resolved issues

• Issue 113978705: Descriptions set in mediaItems.batchCreate were converted to HTML entities.
• Issue 114462217: Filename could not be set for video files in mediaItems.batchCreate.
• Issue 118475587: Invalid product URLs were returned for media items.
• Issue 111862704: 403 errors when accessing base URLs.
• Issue 115932469: Uploads failing with quota error.

September 6, 2018

Features

• Java and PHP client libraries are now available.

Notes

• Google Photos Library API has entered the general availability. Thanks for your feedback and feature requests during the Library API developer preview period.
• Check out the new guides for getting started with Java and PHP client libraries.
• Sample Java and PHP code snippets have been added to the guides to demonstrate the usage of client libraries.

September 5, 2018

Features

• New call sharedAlbums.get to get an album using the shareToken.
• New property isJoined in shareInfo to identify if the user has joined the shared album.

Resolved issues

• Issue 79321120: mimeType property was missing in the mediaItems.batchCreate response for video media items.
• Issue 79319272: Properties such as mediaMetadata, contributorInfo were missing in the mediaItems.batchCreate response.
• Issue 110237685: Fixed CORS-related file upload issue.
• Issue 79318118: Consistent order was not being maintained when uploading multiple items to an album in the mediaItems.batchCreate call.

Notes

• If you stored IDs (such as IDs for albums, media items or enrichment items) before 5 September 2018, they will no longer work as the format has changed. You will need to obtain new IDs for use in your application.
• The totalMediaItems property of the album resource has been renamed to mediaItemsCount.
• The maximum value of the pageSize parameter in the mediaItems.list and mediaItems.search calls has been changed to 100. The default number of media items returned when the pageSize parameter is not specified has been changed to 25.
• List library contents, Share media and Access media items guides updated with the excludeNonAppCreatedData](/photos/library/guides/apply-filters#nonapp-created) filter feature released on July 31, 2018.

July 31, 2018

Features

• New call mediaItems.list to list media items.
• New filter excludeNonAppCreatedData to search for items or list albums created by your app.
• New parameters to access images:
  • Issue 79871479: c crop parameter, to crop image to exact dimensions.
  • Issue 110343547, Issue 111228390: d download parameter, to download the original image.
• The sharedAlbums.join call now returns an album.
• Issue 109655786: album now contains the media item ID of the cover photo, coverPhotoMediaItemId.
• Issue 79656863: mediaItem now contains the filename of the media item, filename.

Resolved issues

• Issue 79757390: Filename was not being set during upload requests. See X-Goog-Upload-File-Namefile and X-Goog-Upload-Protocol fields in the Upload media guide.
• Issue 80182372: Resumable uploads returned an error. See the new Resumable uploads guide for the updated protocol.
• Issue 79497397: isWriteable property missing in the albums.list response.
• Issue 111143493: PEOPLE content category filter was returning inaccurate results.
• Issue 111056278: BIRTHDAYS content category filter was returning an error.

Preview release - May 8, 2018

Initial release of the Library API.

Known issues

• GET mediaItem throws an error if the media item id it receives is for a media item that's from a shared album and isn't owned by the user.
• The response from the batchCreate call won't return mediaMetadata or contributorInfo.
• If the media item is a video, the batchCreate call won't return a mimeType.
• batchCreate doesn't maintain consistent order when uploading multiple items.
• batchCreate doesn't support ordering (adding in a position) when creating media items in a shared album as the owner of the shared album. It defaults to the end of the album.