When you think of a Google-built photo app, there’s a good chance that you immediately think of Google Photos.
The default on practically every Android phone shipped today, it offers the easiest way to back up your photos, a good-enough photo editor, and impressive AI-powered tricks.
However, Google Photos isn’t the only photo app made by Google. Hidden away in the Play Store is yet another Google app that serves a very different purpose.
You might remember it by its original name, Gallery Go, but today it is just Google Gallery, and it is the antithesis of everything that Google Photos is.
Where Google Photos is packed with features and needs the cloud to make use of most of its features, Google Gallery is lean, fast, and purely offline.
It’s quickly becoming my go-to app for a select few features that are increasingly rare in modern apps. Intrigued? Here’s why.
Simplicity is key
No clutter, just your pictures
As far as modern phones and apps are concerned, apps and updates go hand in hand. There’s a constant drive to add more features.
Every update adds something experimental or changes something up as an experiment, making the interface more complicated than before.
I don’t want that, nor do I care about it. What I do care about is focusing on the essentials, and Google Gallery feels like a throwback to a very different era of software.
When you open the app, all you see are photos and videos. That’s it. There are no automated memories created, no cloud backup notifications, no notifications period.
The focus is on the images on your phone, and that’s it. There’s real value in that simplicity.
When all I want to do is review my recently clicked photos, I want an app that is fast and easy to navigate without getting in the way with extraneous features. Google Gallery gives me that.
That’s not to say that I don’t love the convenience of Google Photos. Having access to all my photos is great, but I don’t always need that. It can be overwhelming.
With Google Gallery, there’s no friction. I tap the app icon and immediately start browsing my latest photos.
Need a bit more organization? Tap the folders button, and you can drop into specific folders. That’s it.
That immediacy is incredibly helpful when I want to quickly show a picture to a friend or find a screenshot quickly.
It works everywhere
Built for offline use
Google Photos is an incredible app with one defining trait — tight integration with the cloud.
It’s powerful in how it can search and locate obscure photos from ages ago with just a few keywords.
However, if you don’t have a good internet connection, that overt internet reliance can slow down the app.
Google Gallery, on the other hand, was built with zero cloud integration in mind. It doesn’t connect to the internet at all. It can only show you the photos on your phone.
This allows the app to work practically instantly, no matter where you are, while feeling fluid and reliable despite loading up hundreds or thousands of local images.
This offline-first approach also makes it a great choice for older devices or when you’re traveling and need a basic gallery app that won’t start gobbling down data the moment you switch it on.
Ironically, that’s what the original intention was, too. The app was designed for emerging markets where internet access can be unreliable, expensive, or just a combination of both.
Still, that doesn’t mean you can’t take advantage of the frugality of the app.
Small, light, and capable
Don’t skimp out on the essentials
In the day and age of phones packing more storage than you might ever need, you probably don’t think twice about the storage footprint of apps before downloading them.
There’s more to it. Google Photos maintains a healthy cache of thumbnails for all its images that goes back well beyond the images stored on your phone.
All that storage adds up, and your photo app could be taking up gigabytes of space on your phone. That’s not the case with Google Gallery.
To start with, the app is tiny, installs nearly instantly, and remains fluid to use. That efficiency extends to its performance, with near-instant launches, scrolls, and negligible battery drain.
Nor does it build a multi-gigabyte cache on your phone.
All of those features are exceptionally important on a mid-range phone, but I’m not averse to eking out a bit more performance on a flagship phone, either.
It’s worth noting that the small size doesn’t mean a lack of features. Google has packed in just enough features to ensure that the phone remains useful without overwhelming users.
So, you’ll get essentials like the ability to crop, rotate, and apply basic filters. Nothing too fancy, but more than enough if all you want to do is clean up an image and post it online.
It’ll even sort your photos based on screenshots, videos, and others.
These features are neatly integrated, unobstrusive, and just enough to make sure you’re not left scrambling for yet another image-editing app.
It’s a healthy balance that not many apps are able to achieve.
Local control
Keep full control of your photos and data
There’s one more reason why I like using Google Gallery so much.
It doesn’t try to take over control of my photos from me. It respects the idea that my photos belong to me.
With Google Photos, almost every feature is built with a cloud-first strategy in mind and requires you to upload the image to Google’s servers.
That may be convenient, but it raises big questions around privacy, long-term storage, and subscription costs.
Moreover, there is virtually no guarantee that your photos aren’t being used as fodder to train AI models.
Google Gallery skips that entire debate. There are no sign-ins. It’s just a local gallery viewer. Simple and easy.
You might not realize this, but there are instances where this comes in very handy.
There are times when I don’t want to mix business-related images with my personal Google Photos account, such as temporary screenshots or images of sensitive documents.
The moment I open Google Photos, it starts uploading these. I can always delete the files from the cloud, but the damage is done by then.
With Google Gallery, I know these images will only stay on my device. It brings back a little bit of control in a world where the assumption is that data will be in the cloud.
Why Google Gallery deserves an install on every phone
Google Gallery isn’t a perfect app by far. It has nowhere close to the features of Google Photos.
There is no backup functionality. There are no advanced editing tools, collaborative albums, or fancy AI tricks. And that’s fine. That’s the point of the app.
It’s one of the biggest reasons why I use the app. I still use Google Photos to back up essential photos and share them with family. However, when I need speed, privacy, reliability, and simplicity, it is Google Gallery that I turn to.
It may be Google’s other photo app, but in more than one way, it is the app that I love using more, and would easily recommend as a must-install to any Android user.