Subscribe to these release notes.
This page is updated with each new release of the Google Photos Library API. 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.
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
, andphotoslibrary
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 forphoto
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 theshareInfo
property for shared albums. The API can join users to a shared album whenisJoinable
istrue
. If an owner has disabled link sharing on an album in Google Photos,isJoinable
will befalse
, 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 insimpleMediaItem
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
inshareInfo
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 thealbums.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 theVideoProcessingStatus
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:
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 status207 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
andDateRange
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 thealbums.create
response.
January 7, 2019
Resolved issues
- Issue 118464845:
mediaItems.list
returned too many empty pages. - Issue 111714379:
mediaItems.search
returned half thepageSize
.
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 theshareToken
. - New property
isJoined
inshareInfo
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 tomediaItemsCount
. - 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 thepageSize
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.
- Issue 79871479:
- 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
andX-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 itemid
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 returnmediaMetadata
orcontributorInfo
. - If the media item is a video, the
batchCreate
call won't return amimeType
. batchCreate
doesn't maintain consistent order when uploading multiple items.batchCreate
doesn't support ordering (adding in aposition
) when creating media items in a shared album as the owner of the shared album. It defaults to the end of the album.