Today, Google announced that it"s adding direct messaging to Google Photos, just in case you were hoping for another messaging service from the Mountain View company. While you"ve always been able to easily share a link to a photo or album through a third-party service, now it can all be done in-app.
One thing that this will enable you to do is easily see all of the photos you"ve shared with a person, since it will all be a thread. Naturally, you can also add comments, likes, and so on. You can also take an image that a friend sends you and add it to your own gallery, although Google wasn"t clear on if there are additional controls for this, for sensitive photos.
Google mentioned that this service will let you share photos without sacrificing quality, a notable feature. When you share photos via SMS messages, on Facebook, or on some other platforms, it does indeed degrade the image quite a bit.
The company says that this isn"t designed to replace the chat apps that you already use, and that"s no surprise. This is specifically for sharing photos.
The feature is going to start gradually rolling out over the next week, and it will be available on all Google Photos platforms, including Android, iOS, and the web.