Organise your Photos view and stack similar photos

When you open Google Photos, you find a view with all of your photos and videos. You can organise your Photos view by grouping similar photos into stacks.

While you can group similar photos into stacks to help organise your Photos view, it doesn't change your available storage. Learn how to clean up storage.

Important: If you can't find a photo in your Photos view, check Photo stacks.

Navigate a photo stack

You can view the top pick for each stack in your Photos view. When you tap a photo stack from your Photos view, you can scroll through all items in the photo stack from the filmstrip at the bottom. To view other items that are not part of the stack, swipe left or right.

You can also navigate to a stacks grid to find all items in a stack in a grid view. From here, you can take action on multiple items in the stack at once.

Taking actions on Photo stacks from Photos view

When you share Photo stacks, add Photo stacks to things like albums and animations, or order Photo stacks from your Photos view or save Photo stacks to your device, you're prompted to tap 'Selected items only' or 'Includes Photo stacks'.

• Selected items only: Your action will apply only to the top pick.
• Includes Photo stacks: Your action will apply to all items in the photo stack.

Other actions will automatically apply to all items in the stack.

Manage Photo stacks

You can access and share selected photos and videos from the stack.

Turn Photo stacks on and off

1. On your iPhone or iPad, open the Google Photos app .
2. Tap More .
3. Turn on or off Stack similar photos.

Tip: If you turned on Photo stacks but can't find stacks in your Photos view, try the following:

• Make sure that you've turned on backup. Photo stacks are only available for backed up photos. Learn how to turn backup on or off.
• Check back again later. It takes some time to stack recently taken photos.

View all photos in a photo stack from a grid

1. On your iPhone or iPad, open the Google Photos app .
2. Tap a photo stack .
3. Tap Stacks grid .

Tip: You can select multiple items in this grid to take actions on a group of photos.

Share photos in a stack

1. On your iPhone or iPad, open the Google Photos app .
2. Touch and hold a photo stack .
3. Tap Share .
   • To share only the selected items, tap Selected items only.
   • To share all items in the photo stack, tap Includes Photo stacks.

Share selected photos from a stack

1. On your iPhone or iPad, open the Google Photos app .
2. Tap a photo stack .
3. Tap Stacks grid .
4. Touch and hold to select photos that you would like to share.
5. Tap Share .

Change the top pick

Important: For each stack, Photos automatically chooses the 'top pick'. 'Top pick' is the cover photo for the stack in your Photos view. Chosen photos appear in your Photos view. You can change the top pick at any time.

1. On your iPhone or iPad, open the Google Photos app .
2. Tap a photo stack .
3. At the bottom, scroll the filmstrip to a different photo.
4. Swipe up and tap Set as top pick.

Tip: Top picks are different from favourite photos.

Troubleshoot Photo stacks

Unstack photos in your Photos view

You can unstack an entire photo stack. The photos from the stack will display individually in your Photos view.

1. On your iPhone or iPad, open the Google Photos app .
2. Touch and hold a photo stack .
3. Tap Unstack photos.

Remove photos from a stack

1. On your iPhone or iPad, open the Google Photos app .
2. Tap a photo stack .
3. Tap Stacks grid .
4. Touch and hold to select photos that you would like to remove.
5. Tap Remove from stack.

Delete individual photos from a stack

1. On your iPhone or iPad, open the Google Photos app .
2. Tap a photo stack .
3. Tap Stacks grid .
4. Touch and hold to select photos that you would like to delete.
5. Tap Bin Bin.

Keep one photo and delete the rest

You can keep one photo from a photo stack and delete the rest.

1. On your iPhone or iPad, open the Google Photos app .
2. Tap a photo stack .
3. Tap Stacks grid .
4. Touch and hold the photo that you want to keep.
5. Tap Keep this, bin the rest.
6. Tap Bin Bin.

Tip: Some photos can save space when deleted. If you delete a photo that saves storage space in your Google Account, you may get an estimate of the recovered storage.

Delete an entire photo stack

1. On your iPhone or iPad, open the Google Photos app .
2. Touch and hold a photo stack .
3. Tap Bin Bin.

About Photo stacks 

• Photo stacks: You can choose to automatically organise similar photos into a stack that suggests the top pick of the stack.
• Similar photos: Nearly identical photos of the same subject that were taken together within a short time frame.
• At the top right of a photo in your Photos view, stacks of photos have the Photos stack .

Related resources

• Delete photos and videos
• Get info about your photos and surroundings
• Import photos to your library