Google Photos will soon let you lock away your private images

Google Photos is locking down your images.

What you need to know

• Google is adding a password-locked folder to Google Photos.
• This will keep certain images from appearing when scrolling through your library.
• Google is also bringing new privacy features to Maps and Search.

Google is introducing new privacy features in Google Photos and other apps. At Google I/O 2021, the company announced that it’s bringing a new “Locked Folder” to the Google Photos app. This will lock some of your photos away behind a password or biometric scanner like a fingerprint sensor.

The benefit of a Locked Folder on Google Photos is that it will keep some of your sensitive images hidden while you’re scrolling through your photos. It may also keep these photos from appearing in your slideshows that appear on smart displays like the Google Nest Hub (2nd Gen).

The new Locked Folder is arriving first on Google’s Pixel smartphones but will arrive on more of the best Android phones later this year. There are more updates arriving on Google Photos that you can read about here.

Google is also introducing more privacy enhancements for your Google Account. The company bringing a new “quick delete” feature that lets users quickly remove the last 15 minutes of search history. Google Maps is also adding helpful reminders about your timeline so that you know that your location history is on in case you might not want it to remember some of the places that you’ve visited.

These new privacy features are in addition to some of the new password features arriving on Chrome to help automate the process of creating a new password.

These new features highlight Google’s commitment to helping users stay on top of their data by giving them more control over the information they choose to share. This commitment is also seen in Google’s announcement of Android 12’s new privacy features, which also provides more control over how apps use data.