A safe home
for life’s memories.

Google Photos is the home for all your photos and videos, automatically organised and easy to share. We invest in advanced security infrastructure and easy-to-use privacy controls so that you can safely store and share your memories.

All the ways that Google Photos helps to keep your memories safe.
Keeping your memories safe
We operate one of the most advanced security infrastructures, with everything from custom-designed data centres to transcontinental fibre-optic cables that are continuously monitored to help keep your memories safe.

Secure storage

Google services are continuously protected by the world’s most advanced security infrastructure. This built-in security detects and helps prevent online threats, so you can be confident your personal information is secure.

Encryption

Encryption keeps data private and secure while in transit. When you store your photos, the data that you create moves between your device, Google services and our data centres. We protect this data with multiple layers of security, including leading encryption technology like HTTPS and encryption at rest.

Treating data responsibly
People interact with their photos across different apps and devices. As we work to make it easier for you to do more with the photos that you take, these moments of convenience should extend beyond the Google Photos app and web experience in a responsible way.

Face grouping

Face grouping automatically groups similar faces and sorts them for you making it easy to search and manage your photos. Face groups and labels are only visible to you. You control whether face grouping is on or off, and if you turn it off, face groups will be deleted from your account. We do not make general purpose facial recognition technology commercially available.

Partner Programme

We work closely with partners and developers who use the Google Photos API to ensure that they are building meaningful integrations that enhance your Google Photos experience. Partners that we work with are required to comply with our policies, and cannot access any data without your permission.

Putting you in control
Data makes Google Photos more helpful and relevant, but we want to help put you in control of your experience. We've built easy-to-use tools into our product that put you in control and let you choose the settings that are right for you.

Selective backup

You can choose to back up your photos and videos to Google Photos or selectively back up only the photos that you want stored to your Google Account.

Memories

Relive your best moments, privately presented to you. You have the option to opt-out of seeing memories of certain people or time periods, and the ability to turn off this feature altogether.

Map view

View your photos by location on an interactive map that only you can see. This map view is populated using location data saved in your Google Account. You can edit and remove the location info used to populate the map on photos.google.com. If you don't want to see your future photos organised on this map view, you can turn off Location History and location data in your camera app.

Google Assistant

Ask Google Assistant to help you find, view or share photos. In your Assistant settings, you can choose what you want to display and share from your Assistant devices, like the Google Nest Hub or any Android phone. To curate and control the photos that appear on specific smart displays or cast-connected devices, you can use the individual device settings in your Home app.

Secure sharing
Whether it’s a single photo or an entire album, you control who you share your memories with. Easy and secure controls allow you to share your content with specific people or you can use a shareable link to share it more broadly.

Album sharing

When you share an album, the default option will be to share with a specific person or people via their Google Account. This gives you more control over who is added to the album. You still have the option to share via a link, which makes it easy to share photos with people who don't use Google Photos or have a Google Account. You can update the sharing settings of your albums at any time and control who has access to each album.

Direct sharing

When you share one-off photos and videos, you’ll have the option to add them to an ongoing, private conversation in the app.

Sharing activity

Everything that you've shared through Google Photos is located in one place so you can find all the moments that you’ve shared with your friends and family.

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