GoKawiilTaylor Kerns / Android Authority
TL;DR The Google Photos app on Android is being updated with a new navigation button layout.
The new bottom bar is visually smaller and persistent across different views in the Photos app.
This version has been available on iOS since early 2026, but is new for Android users.
Early this year, Google rolled out a nice little UI tweak for Google Photos. The app’s bottom navigation bar was redesigned in a February update, making it more compact and allowing more of your photos to show through. At the time, that update only hit the iOS version of Photos — but now, it’s rolling out broadly on Android, too.
The redesigned bottom bar is now available for many users on Android, as spotted by 9to5Google. We’re seeing it on our own phones here at Android Authority, too.
The updated bottom bar takes up significantly less screen real estate than the previous version. It groups the Photos, Collections, and Create views into one large pill shape, with a separate, round Search button. Your photos are visible in the space around the buttons, which are persistent near the bottom of the display regardless of which tab you’re currently viewing.
It’s a more compact and modern look, for sure, taking up maybe a third the space as the previous iteration. That older version disappeared entirely when scrolling back through your Photos timeline, but making the buttons a persistent UI element should make the app’s layout a little easier to understand at a glance with less trial and error required.
This new version is showing up on our own devices right now; I’ve got the updated button layout in version 7.82 of the Google Photos app running on a Pixel 9 Pro. If you’ve still got the old ribbon-style button layout, the newer version should be landing on your device soon.
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