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, 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 Android device, 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 Android device, open the Google Photos app .
2. Tap a photo stack .
3. At the bottom, tap the thumbnail menu Multi-select.

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 Android device, 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 Android device, open the Google Photos app .
2. Tap a photo stack .
3. At the bottom, tap the thumbnail menu Multi-select.
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 Android device, open the Google Photos app .
2. Tap a photo stack .
3. At the bottom, scroll the filmstrip to the photo that you wish to set as top pick.
4. Tap the thumbnail menu Set as top pick.

Tip: Top picks are different from favourite photos.

Hide photos from other apps

1. On your Android device, open the Google Photos app .
2. Tap a photo stack .
3. At the bottom, tap the thumbnail menu Manage settings.
4. Turn Show content from other apps on or off.
5. Optional: If you turn 'Show content from other apps' on, you can choose to:
   • Only show backed-up content: All backed-up photos from other apps appear in your Photos view.
   • Hide clutter from apps: Backed-up photos from other apps, like screenshots, GIFs and memes, are hidden from your Photos view.
   • Customise by app: Select the setting that you prefer for your chosen app:
     • Show all
     • Hide clutter
     • Hide all

Find the source of a photo

Important: Photos backed up from apps aren't available for Partner Sharing. Learn more about Partner Sharing.

1. On your Android device, open the Google Photos app .
2. Tap a photo.
3. At the top, tap More About.
4. Under 'Details', find the photo's source .

Customise your hide controls for an app

1. On your Android device, open the Google Photos app .
2. Tap a photo stack .
3. At the bottom, tap the thumbnail menu Manage settings.
4. Under 'Content', tap Customise by app.
   • Tip: This option will only be available if the 'Show content from other apps' toggle is on.
5. Tap an app name.
6. Next to the app name, select the setting that you prefer:
   • Not customised
   • Show all
   • Hide clutter
   • Hide all

Tips:

• If you turn off the toggle for 'Show content from other apps', any existing app customisations will no longer apply.
• Your app-level settings override your main hide settings.
  • For example, if your main hide setting is 'Show content from other apps', but your WhatsApp hide setting is 'Hide all', all photos from WhatsApp are hidden in your Photos view.

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 Android device, open the Google Photos app .
2. Touch and hold a photo stack .
3. At the bottom, scroll the filmstrip to the photo that you want to unstack.
4. On the right-hand side of the photo, tap the thumbnail menu Multi-select Unstack.

Remove photos from a stack

1. On your Android device, open the Google Photos app .
2. Tap a photo stack .
3. On the right-hand side of the photo, tap the thumbnail menu Multi-select.
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 Android device, open the Google Photos app .
2. Tap a photo stack .
3. On the right-hand side of the photo, tap the thumbnail menu Multi-select.
4. Touch and hold to select photos that you would like to delete.
5. Tap Bin Move to bin.

Keep one photo and delete the rest

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

1. On your Android device, open the Google Photos app .
2. Tap a photo stack .
3. At the bottom, scroll the filmstrip to the photo that you want to keep.
4. On the right-hand side of the photo, tap the thumbnail menu Keep this, delete rest.
5. Tap Move to bin.

Tips:

• Some photos 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.
• You can't recover permanently deleted content with the Google Takeout export service.

Delete an entire photo stack

1. On your Android device, open the Google Photos app .
2. Touch and hold a photo stack .
3. Tap Bin Move to 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